Briefing.com: Stock Brief: "You can argue that including long distance in a fixed monthly price isn't really "free." It doesn't matter. Consumers stopped making long distance calls from their line phones. Long distance shifted to "free" cell phones.

This shift was a crucial element in destroying one of the greatest companies ever created in America: American Telephone & Telegraph.

The points to be drawn from this are simple:

* Consumers will readily stop paying for a service when free or perceived free alternatives become available * The warnings about long distance heading toward free service came far in advance of the collapse of traditional long distance providers

Unfortunately, Briefing.com links rot after 24 hours as far as I can tell. This is a well reasoned essay on why the RIAA's defence of copyright for digital music (and video) is culturally a lost cause. Robert Green argues that Americans refuse to pay for long distance because it became "free" with cell phones. Napster and its children have provided us with free copies of some music. Illegal copying is now accepted culturally in the U.S. and the recording industry has lost its cash cow forever, just as AT&T lost its cash cow of long distance service.

The next chapter begins.   10:05:51 PM