Now that the idea of long tail marketing appears to have been debunked, Chris Anderson is looking for new things to talk about. In this interview at the BBC he speculates that “Everything wants to be free,” and suggests that we are moving towards a world in which more and more things will be available for free, but in which companies will still be able to make profits.

That, of course, sounds crazy, but he doesn’t quite mean that. What he’s talking about is the tendency in the digital world to offer limited versions of a product for free and charge for an upgrade to the premium version. This can be a very effective marketing strategy, but in addition people who can’t afford the premium version, and in many cases who don’t need it, get what they want for free.

It is interesting stuff, though I’ll be more impressed when someone offers me a free car. On the other hand, I suspect that most of the flights I take are heavily subsidized by the people traveling in first and business class. Slowly but surely, The Culture is arriving.