The future... is it free?

I read an interesting article tonight on 123-reg blog about the future of free, where businesses are heading, etc. It was a good article, talking about how virtually any business on the internet is able to jump on the "Free" bandwagon. Because it is so much cheaper now to do it, what with no real overhead for distribution, that frees up a bunch of moolah.

In his article and interview, the dude talks about his new book coming out. It's going to be entirely free on the internet. He's saying, well, it doesn't cost me naything to distribute it on the net, so it shouldn't cost them anything to get it.

I hear a lot of talk about "the cost of free" when it comes to digital scrapbooking. Truly, ifyou have a free blog, a free websharing program like 4shared, the only cost that goes in are the costs that you already have (like photoshop) and the cost of your time. So the question in digital scrapbooking and designing is always, well, how much is my time worth? And could the future of digital scrapboking be free? Is there some way to offset the costs of your time with say, advertising income?

Deep thoughts from a deep mind. All from reading one article. Whoops, I better go to bed!