Free is sure way to build a monopoly whether intentionally or not. There is plenty of evidence on the internet. So what happens when a leading university like MIT starts giving away education for free? At a seminar I attended a while ago the keynote speaker Ruud Veltenaar was talking about the vision of the prestigious MIT university to make all of their courses available to everyone in the world for free. It almost sounds too good to be true and you could hardly oppose the idea of giving everyone free education, especially if it comes from a renowned institute such as MIT. And of course there is nothing wrong with the idea itself. But once he mentioned the democratization of education something started nagging. The claim hat internet democratizes has been made too often but it never worked that way. Just look at the democratization of the music industry, as it stands the opposite has happened. History repeating? "Providing services for free is a very effective way to create a monopoly" Google once started as the leanest search engine on the planet, free, no ads and with a very good search algorithm. A few others tried as well but their search results were clouded with banners, commercial messages and to be honest a not quite so good algorithm. It didn't took long for Google to become the biggest search engine and finally the monopolist of search. If you now use Google your search results are full of ads, commercial deep links to web shops and reference information from Google selected resources. A long way from where they started and a long way from what I like my search engine to be. But alas there are no real alternatives left. Spotify has become the leading music channel. It started giving away free music (with some ads) as well as selling really cheap subscriptions. By now they are leading music channel and there is no way for an artist to bypass Spotify. The ones who tried all failed and are now also available on Spotify. Providing free services attracts the largest audience simply because everybody likes free. Considerations about quality or impact of using free services come a far second. The competition who is not providing free services soon looses their customers and is forced to give services away for free as well. In the end this is not sustainable and the one with the deepest pockets and the smartest marketeers wins. Most of the competition will be gone and the monopoly is there. Once the monopoly is in place you can start scrutinizing your suppliers or you can start annoying your customers with more ads or price increases. The end of diversity In the creative industry there is little money left for those who are not at the absolute top of the list. On top of that the total revenues have dropped enormously because of the free business model. A million hits on Spotify earns an artist only $900. Once 20% of the artists was getting 80% of the revenues in the music industry and there used to be a long tail of smaller bands still making a living. By now only 1% of artists is taking the 80% (if not more) and the long tail is almost gone. Goodbye diversity, goodbye alternative music, goodbye independent labels. A single company controlling the vast majority of the sales of any product kills diversity. If your product is not in the front window of these websites, your products won't be sold. And without competition there is no other option left. Slowly but steadily diversity disappears. In the short run this might not seem a problem, but as the Apple advertisement once said "think differently", it is those who are thinking and acting and creating outside the box who can make a difference. Without diversity progress will be slow down and a lack of diversity makes us all more vulnerable. That's certainly true for the evolution of species, but it applies to everything else just as well. Back to MIT - how to do it differently In the case of MIT it might not be intentional to eliminate hundreds of smaller universities, but in reality that is the inevitable result when an influential university as MIT starts providing free services. Other universities will see the number of students and available money decreasing. They will be unable to compete and providing their education for free will only make things worse. Sooner or later they will be history. And with the elimination of all these universities around the world diversity will be gone. Research, education, graduate programs and ultimately education itself will be one flavor, that of MIT. It is something that any professor should strongly oppose, because it's diversity in education that has brought us many of the great advancements in history. "Education should never become a monopoly. Diversity is one of the main drivers of our evolution." So if MIT is really serious about democratizing education they should use their considerable influence and means to empower diversity and create more MIT like universities around the world. They should encourage other universities to challenge MIT itself. They could create competition between their different branches, they should embrace diversity, they could even support their strongest opponents. Because in the end diversity is what we need. And to make this type of education available for everyone governments and universities should sponsor those who cannot afford it. Giving away education for free is not the way to do it. Disclaimer: This is not a conspiracy theory. I hate conspiracy theories. Whether or not the outcome of MIT's vision is intentionally or not is irrelevant. What matters is the inevitability of it.
