Hal Varian (my former micro professor) has an interesting piece in the NYT about the impact on the entertainment industry of the declining cost of producing and distributing video material. The basic story is that free material (e.g. YouTube) drives out costly material (e.g conventional movies). The greater the availability of free material, the less time and money will be spent on costly material. As someone who wrote a free book (The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer), I strongly agree with my former prof on this one.
--Dean Baker
