Is "Free" Ruining Our Ability To Value?
So, up until roughly 15 years ago, if you were interested in music and wanted to really enjoy the work of an artist, you had to own it. In other words, you had actually buy the single or the album. Singles came relatively cheap (99 cents), while albums cost anywhere from $9.99, and up. Either way, if you were really into music, the numbers could add up.
The upshot of this was that you couldn’t just go out and buy whatever you wanted, you had to consider your choices. You might listen to a song on the radio or some other similar source, then actually make the decision to own it.
And once you bought it, you made a point to listen to it and appreciate it. Of course, that doesn’t mean everything you bought was good, that’s the nature of the game. You’d buy an album full of expectation and sometimes it delivered, other times it didn’t. So it had to be a considered activity.
Today, none of that’s necessary. You can pay a fixed fee every month and get unlimited music streamed directly to the device of your choice. You can go from one song to another, you can download whatever you like, listening to all of this album or simply one song off that other one. You don’t have to worry about putting any level of ‘diligence’ into the purchase process. No need to think through whether you really ‘value’ this piece of music enough to own it. It’s basically all-you-can-eat.
And in that transition, I wonder if we’ve lost something.
When something’s available without limit, we tend not to think about it. We take it for granted - because we don’t need to do otherwise. There’s no skin in the game, so to speak, not in the considered sense we had in the past. No real transactional cost, no material investment on our part, and certainly no commitment of resources (other than the nominal monthly fee).
As a result, music - art - becomes a commodity, and as it does so, I worry that we’re devaluing that art and the work that’s been put into it. After all, dedicated individuals have put time and effort, blood, sweat and tears into their craft to create something that (they hope) will last for generations. But are we paying attention? Are we willing to make the investment needed to truly appreciate their work, and the message, and the ideas behind it.
Of course, there’s plenty of bubblegum pop out there. Music made by individuals whose prime focus is the spotlight, so ‘art that endures’ isn’t high on their list of priorities. It’s ‘feel-good’ for the moment. But there are plenty of other artists for whom their work matters, and they’ve given of themselves in the process.
But here we are, expecting our music to always be free, that we shouldn’t actually be paying for it - for great art.
I can’t help but think that the advent of "Free" has dulled, perhaps ruined, our ability to truly value art? And by extension, pretty much anything we consume?
