On two different mailing lists recently, the discussions between Gratis and Libre, or “Free, as in Beer” versus “Free as in Speech” has come up. Since I’ve started making my own Hard Cider and giving away a fair amount of it, it struck me that thinking about Free Hard Cider provides an interesting way of exploring “Free, as in Beer”.

In many ways brewing hard cider is similar to writing blog posts. First, and foremost, I do both of them because I enjoy doing it. Then, I place my blog posts up on the Internet for anyone to freely read. While I’m less liberal with my hard cider, I also give away a fair amount of it.

If people like my blog posts, I am grateful when they add a comment in response to my blog posts, essentially, freely giving me information about their reactions or other information they think I might appreciate. If they buy something from one of my sponsors, thereby generating revenue for me, that is also appreciated.

In a similar manner, much of my cider is given away at pot luck events. We bring things that we like to make and give it away freely and others do the same thing. As a result, I often have a nice Mexican Layer Dip to eat with the cider that I drink.

Another interesting aspect of Free Hard Cider, which perhaps tells us something about production and distribution of other things is that the cost of the bottles is greater than the cost of the cider itself. In other words, the big expense is in distribution. To deal with this, I try to recover as many of my used cider bottles as possible to reuse them. In a similar manner, the cost of distributing the written words has always been expensive; printing presses, trucks to deliver the papers, newsboys to take the paper the final mile, and so on. Yet as more of the written word gets distributed online, the cost of distribution decreases. The same is applying to lots of things that can be delivered online and is causing many to rethink their pricing models. This has been a big issue in the news and music industries and is likely to spread.

Of course my cider production and blogging are avocational interests. What about the journalist who needs to get paid for his work? Are their ‘free’ models that could work in this manner? Some of my friends might see this as a return to bartering or some sort of socialist enterprise. Yet this presents an interesting way of rethinking our work. Would we be better off if more people worked at what they loved, in hopes of getting enough compensation to live instead of people toiling away at things they are less interested in out of a contractual obligation that provides them of a somewhat steady income stream?

Perhaps at a party someday soon, I’ll eat some Mexican Layer Dip, drink some cider, and discuss these ideas with friends. Until that time, feel free to leave your comments here.