FRONTLINE
“Generosity means on the net the nature of how it’s grown over 25 years is, is basically a gift economy. It hasn’t been an economy with money changing hands up til now. But it’s a thriving world of 30 million people. What are they doing, they’re giving each other information so that’s the nature of transaction on the net now. For a company or business to get into the net, they need to join that way of doing things and so typically it means giving away software as the people that are now in netscape did by originally giving away mosaic. It means often giving away content. Many authors now reporting full chapters or even all of their book on the web and this is treated as advertising so then what actually do you get paid for? You get paid for other things that emerge later. Personal relationships, authentication, follow up support, some kind of thing that happens outside of the net that is a transaction. So if I put part of a portrait I’m writing on the net and people are intrigued by that, they may go to a book store and buy the actual finished book.”