The High Price of Free

Topic details

Doing business in the web industry has unbelievably low start-up and fixed running costs. You need little more than a computer and an internet connection. The overheads of freelancers and small agencies that build websites and applications for other people, or develop a digital product, are tiny in comparison to a traditional business.

As an industry we have become accustomed to getting hundreds of hours of work, and the benefit of years of hard-won knowledge for free.

My free time in the last couple of years has been put into looking at the Grid Layout spec. I start most days answering emailed questions about the examples I’ve posted, before I get down to the work that pays the bills.

I wondered how other independent and freelance web workers dealt with this conflict between earning money and contributing back. I also wondered if I was alone in feeling that the clock is ticking. I put together a survey (the responses to which probably will be the background to several other pieces of research), and a few things stood out immediately.

John Gruber:

I worry that the inherent slowness of the web and ill-considered trend toward over-produced web design is going to start hurting traffic to DF.

I asked the question, “Are you involved in open source projects, writing tutorials, mentoring, speaking at events-that you do free of charge or for expenses only?” 59% said they were not involved, with 27% of those people citing time constraints. Some people did explain that they were involved in volunteer work outside of the web. By the time I filtered out the under-40s, the non-involvement figure rose to 70%.

Comments

We know that not paying speakers and not covering speaker expenses causes events to become less diverse. The ability to give time, energy and professional skills free of charge is a privilege.

We know that not paying speakers and not covering speaker expenses causes events to become less diverse. The ability to give time, energy and professional skills free of charge is a privilege.

We know that not paying speakers and not covering speaker expenses causes events to become less diverse. The ability to give time, energy and professional skills free of charge is a privilege.

We know that not paying speakers and not covering speaker expenses causes events to become less diverse. The ability to give time, energy and professional skills free of charge is a privilege.