Malcolm Gladwell vs Chris Anderson: a very intellectual bust up

Two of the world’s leading thinkers are in the middle of a spat. Admittedly, it’s all very polite and considered - but a good, old-fashioned bust-up is what it is.

It all started when Malcolm Gladwell reviewed Free: The Future of a Radical Price, the new book by Chris Anderson.

In fact, this was not so much a review as a  demolition job, in which Gladwell calmly dismantled Anderson’s theory that in the world of the web, most things will eventually be – and should be – free.

Gladwell and Anderson are two leading theorists whose once revolutionary ideas have now become orthodox thinking. Gladwell is the author of a number of books, but his first, The Tipping Point explained how certain ideas, behaviour and trends spread quickly after reaching a critical mass.

Meanwhile, Anderson in his book The Long Tail, showed how the web was changing the world of commerce, explaining how successful businesses such as Amazon worked by selling a huge variety of individual items, each in relatively small quantities. The theory has informed a lot of business thinking in the past few years.

Both are also journalists, working for The New Yorker and Wired respectively, and both have the knack of explaining complex theories in simple and entertaining prose - which is why their books are bestsellers.

Now back to the spat.

Gladwell basically argues that Anderson’s new theory is hokum. Here’s a key criticism:

[Anderson argues that] newspapers need to accept that content is never again going to be worth what they want it to be worth, and reinvent their business. “Out of the bloodbath will come a new role for professional journalists,” [Anderson] predicts, and he goes on:

“There may be more of them, not fewer, as the ability to participate in journalism extends beyond the credentialed halls of traditional media. But they may be paid far less, and for many it won’t be a full time job at all. Journalism as a profession will share the stage with journalism as an avocation. Meanwhile, others may use their skills to teach and organize amateurs to do a better job covering their own communities, becoming more editor/coach than writer. If so, leveraging the Free — paying people to get other people to write for non-monetary rewards — may not be the enemy of professional journalists. Instead, it may be their salvation.”

Anderson is very good at paragraphs like this — with its reassuring arc from “bloodbath” to “salvation". His advice is pithy, his tone uncompromising, and his subject matter perfectly timed for a moment when old-line content providers are desperate for answers. That said, it is not entirely clear what distinction is being marked between “paying people to get other people to write” and paying people to write. If you can afford to pay someone to get other people to write, why can’t you pay people to write? It would be nice to know, as well, just how a business goes about reorganising itself around getting people to work for “non-monetary rewards".

Anderson has to respond to Gladwell. The constituencies both writers appeal to are the same. Gladwell probably has a lot of sway over Anderson’s potential readership.

Also, the Gladwell criticism comes after Anderson was forced to apologise for apparently plagiarising passages from Wikipedia in his book. He explained that because of an editing error, the passages had not been correctly attributed.

Essentially, Anderson’s credibility and reputation are on the line. Hence the fast response by him on the Wired website. Anderson addresses Gladwell’s criticism (detailed above), by pointing to the success of the “Geekdad” technology blog he helped launch with Wired contributor Ken Denmead.

In a post titled, Dear Malcolm: Why So Threatened?, Anderson writes:

Here’s the calculus:

• Wired.com makes good money selling ads on GeekDad (it’s very popular with advertisers)

• Ken gets a nominal retainer, but has also managed to parlay GeekDad into a book deal and a lifelong dream of being a writer

• The other contributors largely write for free, although if one of their posts becomes insanely popular they’ll get a few bucks. None of them are doing it for the money, but instead for the fun, audience and satisfaction of writing about something they love and getting read by a lot of people.

So that’s the difference between “paying people to write” and “paying people to get other people to write”. Somewhere down the chain, the incentives go from monetary to nonmonetary (attention, reputation, expression, etc).

But Anderson fails to address Gladwell’s wider, and to my mind, compelling criticisms.

Gladwell argues that in many cases, things can’t be free. Sometimes there are structural costs that need to be recouped. For example, YouTube offers its videos for free, the content is often uploaded onto the site for free. But Google’s plaything loses millions. Why? The cost of YouTube’s bandwidth - which this year will cost $360 million. YouTube tries to sell advertising alongside its videos, but for various reasons, it doesn’t recoup the losses it suffers. Far from being the future, Free could be the end of YouTube.

And there are lot more issues besides. Gladwell says that the problem with Anderson’s theory is that he believes that it is an “iron law” that applies through the web and the digital sphere. Gladwell concludes:

The only iron law here is the one too obvious to write a book about, which is that the digital age has so transformed the ways in which things are made and sold that there are no iron laws

I’d say Gladwell wins this one on points.

Comments

[Benk]

It is ironic - to put it politely - to see Gladwell take another pundit to task for making sweeping and/or banal pronouncements. Gladwell's recent - and highly successful - such pronouncements have included such gems as that trends accelerate logarithmically (The Tipping Point), people make decisions out of bias or visceral reaction, not analysis (Blink) and people who are good at things have practiced a lot first (Outliers).

None of these is completely wrong, but none are completely right either, or particularly novel - and that's even before getting to Gladwell's empirical approach that seems to proceed from (i) find a striking example that appears to verify the sweeping pronouncement (for example, aircrew from some cultures allegedly not raising safety problems for fear of offending authority figures as an illustration of non-rational decision-making) and (ii) ignore whether or not it's even true and then (iii) extrapolate from that anecdote to proof of a general proposition. Here's hoping no-one actually mistakes it for scholarship or research.

Perhaps - noting that Gladwell has managed to make a highly lucrative career out of this rubbish - his objection only relates to sweeping pronouncements that might see his revenues reduced?

[Gordon Rae]

I'm worried that Gladwell and Anderson are described as "two of the world’s leading thinkers". Really they're just pundits who get paid to talk about the future, and they swim in the shallow end of the same pool.

[Greg Skinner]

Taking the medium term veiw, it is difficult to see how money will be made obselete: money is the most efficient means of expressing liberty (literally buying choice). However, very-long term advances in technology such as robotics, super-automisation and intuative codes could see and end to this. If I develop a machine which thanks to adaptive cybernetics and resource processing can make at whim most consumer objects (not impossible even in the mid-term future), then I would cease to require money. my only concern would be resources - but if these are outsourced to automation, I need worry not. The only crux then becomes energy, which in fairness is the crux today. So a resources revolution - positive or negative - would be the deciding factor. Anderson may well be correct, but perhaps awkwardly phrased.

[Sean O'Flynn]

with respect to BENK - Thank god. I thought I have been going mad for the last few years.

You are the first person I have seen reflect the same issues I have with "the leading thinker of our time".

I have never been able to grasp why people rave about Gladwell's books and have often had to explain why I feel that way to people that think he is some sort of revolutionary (though far less eloquently than you did)

[Robert]

This is more of a battle of the witless. Neither of these bozos work holds up under the light of day. Their theories sound like two drunks arguing about how the world works spouting generalities like, "Money is power."

The key is that they not only vaguely sound like intellectuals but they also look like cartoons of intellectuals.

The only book I would buy from either of these two would be "Blatant self-promotion for Dummies"

[will]

some things on the internet will be free when you consider the, on their own, insurance comparison sites for example. But when you expand your terms of reference slightly you will see that the service isnt actually free, but paid for by the insurance companies who pay commisions to the search engine.

Also, you cant expect everything on the internet to be paid for via advertising, this is bubble mentality. In effect the whole internet would be paid for via debt and venture capital and at some point that would run out. The iron law of business, is that companies have to sell stuff and that is just as true for dot coms as it is for normal shops. obvisouly a proportion of that can be advertising, but the amazons, ebays and itunes are the real success stories of the web (excluding google and they are the exception that proves the rule)and they are succesful because they have adapted real world business practises to websites.

simplicity is good.

[Paul]

"Worlds leading thinker"?

Chris Anderson?

Like Gordon Rae I am shocked to read this. Both create fantasies for marketing people who don't have a clue. Gladwell is simply better at it than Anderson, whose two absurd "theses" have now been completely demolished.

Murad, you really need to read more widely.

[germaine botterell]

Oh gee. To claim that Gladwell invented the idea that when messages reach a critical mass, then they get widely accepted --is very, very silly --and you must get this: it's NOT TRUE.

The big story is that Gladwell in his books somehow fails to acknowledge that social scientists have done his topics to death over the past 50 or more years, and Gladwell does an excellent job of packaging them for low-end public consumption.

Now, what personal characteristics might Gladwell bear that he would get such a pass in the media?

Oh gee, dunno.

[Roger]

These men aren't intellectuals. They're journalists whose primary interest is in selling books and making money. Making outrageous prognostications is just part of their schtick.

It's all just a tempest in a teapot.

Incidentally, examination of actual sales figures of music by iTunes has shown the "long tail" hypothesis to be wrong.

[JamieH80]

"Two of the worlds leading thinkers"

and there I was thinking it was James Borg.....

[Kathy Mullins]

Mr. Isaacson, former managing editor of Time Magazine on Morning Joe was speaking on this very topic this morning. Isaacson is on the side of providers of content getting paid for that content be it on the internet, news-stands, or subscriptions. I used to subscribe to Newsweek, but I canceled my subscription because I can read it on the internet and not spend a dime. If you desire to write for fun, fine, but paying writers to coach wannabe's is ridiculous, when the professional writer is available to write.

[Vince]

These two get very nervous when their reputations are threatened - that's all they have. Beyond the banal truthiness of their scribblings is a complete void. The more fanciful conjectures of both of them have been exposed as sham - as somebody else astutely pointed out, sushi for desperate marketeers looking for the next big thing.

Bitchfest for pygmies.

[Pierrick Moreaux]

Malcolm Gladwell is a journalist, not an intellectual; let's not confuse two different categories of people

[Jas..]

Soo a story about overpaid journalists arguing about how they will continue to be overpaid & were to care why?...

Jas...

p.s coincidence this type of story is across alot of print based web sites recently, nah thought not meself...

[karl]

Well put Germaine - I was shocked to read Outliers and realise someone had made lots of money from very poorly understand, third-hand sociology. He is very good at managing to give the impression of having a thesis, when his books are simply a series of anecdotes padded with occasional snippets of decontextualised sociology. They're easy to read but vacuous. The notion that Gladwell is an 'intellectual' is laughable (I've not read, nor will I now, the other guy). That word is not infinitely elastic and I'm disappointed The Times thinks it is. They're not even popularisers. Compare Gladwell to Bryan Magee ... Gladwell comes off looking shameful.

[Trees]

These two are the Great Thinkers of our times?
The Long Tail has been proven false again and again and Gladwell's theories, while they might (just might) provoke an interesting thought or two were certainly not worth a whole book each.
This is no more than two featherweights trading hissy-fits!

[Chris]

Malcom Gladwell, against whom I have no complaint, looks like Sideshow Bob in the photo above. I have always thought Sideshow Bob was one of the world's leading thinkers as well.

[Donal]

Jesus! Poets have been writing for a pittance for centuries.

[Germaine Botterel]

For an insight into Gladwell, read that special passage in Tipping Point where he absolves blacks of wrong-doing because the environment makes them do it.

What is it: Does Gladwell lack the logical capability to see the flaw in his "reasoning", or is he proactively excusing criminal behaviour prepetrated by blacks?

Perhaps the answer is both.

One thing for sure: If Gladwell were fully white and more obviously heterosexual, and we'd never have heard of him.

Affirmative action generates stupidity.

[David]

If these are two of the world's leading thinkers, the world is in a lot of trouble.

[jncc]

"Gladwell and Anderson are two leading theorists whose once revolutionary ideas have now become orthodox thinking."

I would very much like to see you or anyone else provide an example of any "revolutionary idea" that Mr. Gladwell has ever produced.

Just one please.

[Tejesh]

Greatest thinkers!
I agree with every word said by Benk.
In today's package marketing world people have stopped looking at the content of the package.And slowly because of the peer, they only look at the package to compare it with what majority has.
Both these authors have been lucky to have found the wave..nothing else..there are better ideas and thoughts out there.
Both of these authors' ideas are good but obviously not worth a book, a blog entry maybe, a talk maybe, even a newspaper or a magazine article maybe- definitely not worth a book.

[Jordanger]

If you want to read a book that does not in any way deliver on its title, contains no substance, and is truly a means for its author to further self-promote using banal and very, very obvious (read: outdated) examples, pick up Jeff Jarvis's "What Would Google Do." O, the anticipointment it delivers.

In my mind, all three are wrestling for our industry's "Shame On You" award.

[bill]

so, some people want to write for free, to get read. they like the attention and thrill of it.

would all of the best writers fit into that category? or would it just be the "everything's free" techno-hobbyists?

in such a market for "content," trust-fund kids and dot-com bubble winners would definitely be at an advantage (along with some other select constituencies, i imagine--generally people with piles of cash, wanting to feel important and noticed), so i think it would distort the quality and substance of journalism, at the very least.

[JordanLynne]

I've not read "Free" but did read "Long Tail" and at the time found it to be one of the most intriguing, insightful books about - if not the future of technology and product strategy - then the "very now." I then bought it for several interactive agency owners and leaders who also enjoyed it - I don't recall the word "hyperbole" ever being bandied about.

Agreed - Anderson does tend to over-generalize the application of his theories, however the theories themselves are not without merit - and typically simplify very complex, on-target shifts in technology-meets-business for the reader's pleasure. Companies such as Amazon, Zappos, and many thousands of specialty online stores have been and will continue to benefit from "Long Tail Sales" daily, in a way that was not previously possible or profitable. (And, note on Gladwell's missive regarding Apple - yesterday I received an email from Apple offering "20 free indie downloads on iTunes." If that's not Apple trying to make users aware of their Long Tail offerings and expertise (oddly enough, by leveraging Anderson's "Free" model), I don't know what is. Their issue is not lack of desire to play in that space - it's user perception. The Long Tail of music downloads still tends to be of the "beg, borrow, steal" genre. T o say that Anderson's "Long Tail" theory is off because "Apple's not doing it" is not only highly short-sighted, it's quite simply wrong.)

Unlike Anderson, Gladwell does not over-generalize the application of his theories - he over-generalizes the theories themselves. As BENK notes above, he turns "sweeping pronouncements" into very "general propositions." He is the king of dressing up the obvious in easily-recalled quips that escort the reader to the front of the "in the know" line at the proverbial water cooler. Neither "Blink" nor "Tipping Point" brought to the forefront the type of ideas that cause people to smack themselves on the forehead for having missed them - he simply packages agreed-upon but rarely discussed truisms in a format that leadership can easily digest and recall.

Is one approach better or worse? No. Is it possible, given the fluidity of technology, business and the economy of late for any book to be "totally right, forever"? No.

Is there most certainly enough room in the market for both types of authors - and many more? Absolutely.

So remind me - what are we complaining about?

[C D Anson]

Agree with the general tone of incredulity here regarding Gladwell being seen as a 'leading thinker', in particular Benk's post (spot on!).

However, it's unfortunate that some posters are taking the base route with race/sexual orientation wrt Gladwell (e.g. G. Botterel). Gladwell's proclamations provide enough fodder for a clever critic's daily feast without bringing 'personal characteristics' into it.

[zerol05]

"Two of the world’s leading thinkers.."

I laughed.

[Eli Baker]

Mostly the complaints are about these two popularizers being called leading intellectuals and great thinkers.

Woe to the world if that is true.

[Tom Anderosn]

Gladwell made no predictions, he just questioned why Chris' predictions work.

In the 15 years it takes for him to ponder this question, Chris' prediction will come true. People will pay less for the products of journalism while demanding to take part in its production. More people will be paid to encourage participation, many more than are already paid as moderators of chat forums, salespeople at blog 2.0 companies, . Which of these jobs does Malcolm question will keep expanding? It's pedantic argumentation, IMO.

Second point: "Google's ownership of dark fiber, cost-efficient data centers, and use of peering agreements may be cutting the video site's losses close to zero, a new report finds." It's a tax write off. And people who go to the Internet to watch videos are going to stay on the Internet to do online shopping, and they will likely use Google to do that. There are a lot of advantages to learning how to distribute video. Do TV channels make a lot of money? Yes. Will more people watch video in the future? If so, then who is going to start making the kind of money that is made by TV channels?

The historic price of data decreases exponentially over time, a trend that will not stop just because Gladwell has no future sense.

[Shelbyville Manhattan]

Not really sure where all the hate is coming from, other than people not understanding Gladwell/Anderson's actual place in media and society.

Gladwell never claims that he came up with any of the ideas he writes about. He's very explicit that he is a journalist reporting on advancements in the social sciences. He absolutely gives credit to every source he uses, and doesn't really ever claim to have a central thesis.

He isn't writing academic monographs; he's attempting to bring insights from esoteric fields to mass audiences.

Jesus, people need to learn about media.

[PatHayes]

OK, OK, these two guys are broad-brush popularizers, journalists rather than Real Thinkers. Lets all agree on that. But does anyone have any comments on what they are SAYING, about the actual topic? Because in fact it does seem quite important, in spite of the inadequacies of the people involved.