I yield to no one in the category of "Charge money for value", but I have to agree with Anderson on this one: Non-monetary value can still be turned into money. Its not rocket science.
The simplest case for it is search engine rankings: people like linking to free things. Accordingly, putting free things on your website gets you lot of links. Links get you search engine rankings.
I segment my market into two slices: one which is likely to need my application a lot more than they need their money, and one which is not. The free stuff is designed to satisfy the "I'll keep my money" segment (and thus get links from them) while piquing the interest of the "Please, SOMEBODY, help me" segment. The paid software is worth its price (and then some -- I just bumped prices by 20% and after seeing sales data I might do it again) to that segment.
Github does this really well, too: we'll give you access for free if you're an OSS project (ooh, look, you attract links in spades and don't care that your source is public) and we'll charge for access for private repositories, without which your boss would have a conniption fit if you are developing commercial software.
There are other ways to do it to. Demonstrated expertise (free) leads to perceived expertise (free) leads to consulting opportunities (decidedly unfree). Demonstrated expertise (free) leads to perceived expertise (free) leads to business opportunity (free) to improve your sale of widgets (unfree). Demonstrated expertise (free) leads to perceived expertise (free) leads to employment opportunity (unfree). etc.
You demonstrate a big reason why I hate these types of posts/conversations. Realistically you have to create a business plan that meets your needs and looks at your potential market to determine what will be free and what won't. That isn't something that Chris Anderson, Drama 2.0, or anyone else online is going to help much with because each situation is different.
So what's happening here is basically just arguing generalizations which have little consequence in the real world.
The simplest case for it is search engine rankings: people like linking to free things. Accordingly, putting free things on your website gets you lot of links. Links get you search engine rankings.
I segment my market into two slices: one which is likely to need my application a lot more than they need their money, and one which is not. The free stuff is designed to satisfy the "I'll keep my money" segment (and thus get links from them) while piquing the interest of the "Please, SOMEBODY, help me" segment. The paid software is worth its price (and then some -- I just bumped prices by 20% and after seeing sales data I might do it again) to that segment.
Github does this really well, too: we'll give you access for free if you're an OSS project (ooh, look, you attract links in spades and don't care that your source is public) and we'll charge for access for private repositories, without which your boss would have a conniption fit if you are developing commercial software.
There are other ways to do it to. Demonstrated expertise (free) leads to perceived expertise (free) leads to consulting opportunities (decidedly unfree). Demonstrated expertise (free) leads to perceived expertise (free) leads to business opportunity (free) to improve your sale of widgets (unfree). Demonstrated expertise (free) leads to perceived expertise (free) leads to employment opportunity (unfree). etc.