I read two things today that really don't go together except if you look at them from a squinty sideways perspective.
Doc Searls wrote a lengthy post that starts out talking about paying for old news and ends up addressing "splogs" (spam blogs created by 'bots). The line that caught my eye was:
While the print version charges money for today's copy alone, the online version gives away today's copy and charges for what in print would be fishwrap.
I found that notion interesting because I'd just minutes earlier finished an article in the inaugural issue of Ambidextrous magazine. Ambidextrous is a quarterly published by the folks at Stamford's new design school, a project powered by IDEO's David Kelley. The article I read is kind of tricky to get to, for some reason not accessible via a direct link. It's entitled, "Design That Improves With Use," by Michael Helms.
Helms considers a phenomenon with which many of us are familiar: objects that become more functional, or more comfortable, or just better, after years of use.
He writes:
Consider the different objects you've owned and used in your lifetime. Did anything you ever owned get better with use? Perhaps you had a favorite pair of old denim blue jeans, or well-used hiking boots, or maybe you own a comfortable chair that fits you perfect. Maybe you own kitchen utensils or sports equipment that work better now than when you first used them. These items seem to embody character, a certain hardiness that only the best products attain. Which leads me to ask: How can we design things which improve with use?
Helms coins the term, "agathonic" to describe objects that embody this characteristic.
As I said, these things don't really go together, except that both Doc and Helms are describing things that become more valuable over time as they are used more often by people. Mainstream media companies have learned that, like the old shoe, the more certain pieces are read, the more important they are. I recently read Vannevar Bush's prescient 1945 Atlantic Monthly article for the first time, and venture to say that this piece has been read more in the last 10 years than it was in the prior 50, because of its accessibility on the Web. In a certain sense, it's become more valuable because of the use to which it's been put.
So, as Doc says, new digital things are given away. But choosing to seek out and use digital content from the past de facto makes it valuable.
But, even if you think these two ideas really do have nothing to do with one another, read the Ambidextrous piece. It's very good. I'm looking forward to receiving the premiere issue.
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