This is a simple idea, but I wanted to explain what I mean by the statement, information wants to be free, and how it can apply to business and the internet.
The basic concept is that all information, including all types of content and data, have a natural attraction to people and if the barriers (patents, copyrights, access, etc) were removed that information would be passed from person to person automatically. Information would flow like water running down a hill. The more useful or desirable the information the faster it would flow.
In business the people that best know this to be a natural fact are probably intellectual property attorneys since they spend their professional lives fighting the flow. People who own information are also keenly aware of it and spend a good deal of energy working to prevent others from using their information without permission and/or payment.
Some people freely allow the use of the content they create. For example well known blogger Leo Babauta has coined the term uncopyrighted, at least I believe it was Leo. He freely allows people to reuse his content in any way. It also seems to work for him, his blog is on the top 100 with over 170,000 readers.
Google is another good example of how giving information freely can be monetized. Google doesn’t give away all their information, hardly, but they give away so much that it has driven them to the top of internet businesses. Their financial success has made them a corporate giant.
So how does one monetize the natural fact that information wants to be free? In many ways I think we all do it to some degree. In an odd sort of way even a retail shop provides free entertainment and free access to pricing and physical products to potential buyers, even if they never actually give any product away.
The trick is finding the balance between giving things away and selling similar things with a higher value to the subset of people that want more.