Does Free Information on the Internet Foreshadow the End of Capitalism?

Source: Daniel Sta Maria

Some of what Paul Mason is talking about, in terms of the info-capitalism, or the post-capitalist economy, is similar to the argument that advertising in the age of the internet differs from advertising in the pre-internet age because the key to advertising on the internet is to give information away for free in order to draw attention to your product or services.

Marketing guru Seth Goden describes this process, using a boxing analogy, as being "Jab, jab, jab, right hook". In other words, give quality service up front; take care of the potential customer or client and their needs and then ask them to purchase your product or services: "Give, give, give, ask." Goden says one has to learn to listen to clients and customers instead of talking at them all the time -- and be there for them. Another way of saying this is give them value, value, value, and then ask them to buy.

In the pre-internet age advertisements chased consumers; in the internet age consumers chase advertisements as they search the internet for information about things that interest them. They actively seek information that you are posting on the internet and by providing quality information to the public, without cost, one builds a reputation that one is able to monetize in other ways at a later date.

Perhaps this is where the concept of advertising by giving good information and other content away for free diverges from Mason's notion that the free flow of information is leading to an end to monetary value altogether, as he sees the combination of automated production coupled with free ideas and information reducing the cost of goods and services to virtually nothing. There is no "monetizing" end game in Mason's vision. The limitation to abundance, Mason argues, will no longer be limited by resources; value, he argues, comes from knowledge, which is in infinite supply and can be stored and disseminated for next to nothing in the information age.  Limits on abundance in the digitized information age, according to Mason, is determined only by the effectiveness of those who attempt to cling to what he sees as being the outdated notion of private and individual or corporate "intellectual property".

For Mason this question of clinging to the notion of intellectual property is neither a moral nor a political question, it is a question of practicality. "Information wants to be free", he says. Knowledge thrives by flowing freely and by freely interacting. It is through this process of information in dialogue that more and more of it develops. Impediments to this free flow of information represent more than anachronistic politics and more than an illiberal morality -- such impediments represent obstacles to social and human development, which is why -- he believes -- they will ultimately be overcome.