[Search-l] "directory" vs. "search engine"

[Jimmy Wales]

On Jun 7, 2007, at 9:28 AM, Nitin Borwankar wrote:
> Working for free and working as an employee are not the only two  
> revenue
> models for content creators.

Absolutely right!

And I think this contrast between "working for free" and "working as  
an employee" just entirely
misses the point.  I don't do anything for free, and I don't do  
anything for pay.  I just do what I think
is fun, and sometimes I get paid and sometimes I don't.

The approach to open source software and free culture which gets hung  
up on this "working for
free" question always leaves people baffled, because there is  
something fundamentally wrong with
looking at it that way.

Consider bowling.  Some people get paid a lot of money to bowl.   
Suppose someone approached the
bowling alley business with the belief that the objective of the  
business is to somehow persuade people
to do "bowling work" for free.  And then someone else comes along to  
compete, using the argument that
since some people get paid a lot of money in some contexts to bowl,  
that a better business model is to
pay people to bowl.

This is clearly silly for bowling, because we have long long  
experience in knowing that bowling for fun
and bowling for money can and should co-exist in the world.  No one  
would think of going into a bowling
alley to interview the customers with questions like "Why do you do  
this for free, when professional bowlers
are paid to do it?  Don't you feel exploited?"

And the operators of successful bowling alleys know their true  
business: providing a place for people to
do something they enjoy.  They notice that bowling is both  
competitive and social, so they work to set up
leagues of similarly skilled teams.  They notice that bowlers get  
hungry, so they sell food.  They notice that
beer goes well with socializing and eating and playing a game, so  
they sell beer.

Some people get paid to write.  Others do it for free.  Others are  
willing to pay to have an environment where
the writing is supported in certain ways.