Why Buy The Milk, When You Can Get the Milk For Free?
If you’re up on your latest U.S. economy news, then you know, you’ve seen, you’ve heard, that things aren’t getting all that better in the market place. More than ever people are thinking about where their dollars are going and where they can cut costs at every corner.
So I ask, “Why buy the milk, when you can get the milk for free?”
The old adage, “Why buy the cow, when you can get the milk for free,” shows that there really isn’t a need to make a long-term investment of taking care of a cow, when you can get milk for free. Why go through all the work of caring for an animal to produce the resource that is already freely available to you.
Nowadays people not only charge for the cows, but the milk, the cheese, and on and on. But there are people out there giving away “milk” for free, and it’s just as good as the milk that’s available for purchase, and sometimes better.
Music:
Metallica’s album “…And Justice For All” is both loved and hated by fans and general listeners alike, because of its extremely dry audio mix. I have listened to the 45rpm four-record release of the album, the first and second Japanese mini-LP pressings, the MFSL version, various fan re-mixes, and the standard CD releases, only to be a disappointed Goldilocks without that bowl of perfect porridge. That is until I came across Pbthal’s website with a rip of the US Double-LP of the album, which is flawless start to finish. And there’s more, like Jefferson Airplane’s Surrealistic Pillow in Mono and Bob Dylan’s Freewheelin’ in Mono sound outstanding.
Books:
Seth Godin, Cory Doctorow, Chris Guillebeau, myself, and many others make their ebooks free to read and download, but the print versions are available for purchase.
Education:
Go to Ivy-league schools through Academic Earth. Watch lectures from Stanford, Harvard, and Yale.
Television:
Hulu and more recently TVGorge make television shows readily available to be enjoyed from the first episode to the most recent.
Movies:
The Lionshare, which is being distributed mainly through torrent networks can also be viewed through various video-hosting websites. I thoroughly enjoyed the twenty-something “what-am-I-going-to-do-with-my-life?” plot in the film and wish it the best of success in its endeavors.
How Can I Help?
Well, until Flattr is up and running, you can support your favorite free stuff by talking about it, like I’m doing. I have never purchased advertising on other websites, and I don’t plan on doing it either, because I think if the stuff I make is worth anything, then people will tell their friends. And they’ll tell their friends, and so on, and so on.
All of the websites, authors, and bands I just mentioned have now received a little bit of advertisement from me. It doesn’t cost them anything, and it certainly isn’t hard for me to write about them, because I love their stuff. So when I get the milk for free I make it a point to tell others about the cows that are making it and give credit where credit’s due. That's what I do.