Maybe Information Really Doesn't Want to Be Free

Could the era of ubiquitous free content be ending?

Ask New Yorker media columnist Ken Auletta and he'll tell you it just might be. And not just because traditional media companies find themselves desperate for a new source of revenue in the digital age, but because the company that has arguably done more than any other to promote the ethos of free content has come around on the issue. That would be Google, and Auletta ought to know better than most. The author of the recent book "Googled," Auletta was granted unprecedented access to the company, sitting in on closed-door meetings and conducting more than 150 interviews with employees and meeting dozens of times with the founders and top executives. In a keynote address delivered at an industry conference hosted by the Software and Information Industry Association in New York, Auletta argued that a strictly ad-supported business model for the media business is beginning to lose credibility.