Climbing Out One Family’s Adventure in Becoming Debt-free

An odd conversation sprung up last week that got me thinking about value versus miserness. The term “conversation” is probably incorrect as I stopped responding once I realized the other person was just out to pick a fight, but it made me question why I am so happy to pay for somethings and not for others.

All around us we are bombarded with very sophisticated marketing that gets us to spend our money — often times on things we could do well without. Sometimes, though, we seek out a service or goods that we want or need; i.e. something with intrinsic value to us and I am amazed when another person is simply unwilling to pay for it. The Entitlement Gene is evolving rapidly in our culture.

Some people seem to actually believe that if one person got something for one price then by-golly everyone else better be able to get it at that price (or better) from now until the end of time, amen.

Case-in-point: an event I wanted to see was nationally simulcast a couple of weeks ago. It was available free on cable television, at local churches and businesses, terrestrial radio and streamed by some stations online. It was also re-broadcast on cable television several times in the days following the original event.

This week the publisher made it available online. Two dollars for a single viewing or eight dollars to download it to keep. The download agreement also includes the right to make unlimited copies to share with others.

I was publicly and personally called “stupid” in all-capital letters for being willing to pay for the download. While that does entertain me, I was also amazed by it.

Forget for a moment about things like production costs, download bandwidth and storage hardware. This was a program I wanted to see for its content. Am I willing to pay to see and potentially share information I find valuable even though I could have seen it for free?

Absolutely.

Has most of America decided that media content is a right we are all entitled to regardless of its publisher’s rights? Or maybe since so much of it is truly mindless and without value everything should be free to make up for the time we waste on the utter garbage.

To offer another perspective; if a car mechanic were to open in my town that did all their work for free, would I take our cars there? What about a surgeon who did everything gratis? No thanks.

What about a photographer selling prints of his pictures? You could have gotten up and watched the sunrise for free, right?

Things have the value we assign them. At the end of the day goods and services of exceptional nature have exceptional value. I guess a certain demographic will deem me STUPID for paying for some things, but I encourage everyone to be willing to pay for the things you find exceptional.

If no one is willing to pay for value, what are we left with? Money? Perhaps…

but nothing worth spending it on.

the Dad