Why the lack of cheap broadband is killing our knowledge economy

I have just finished Chris Anderson's latest book Free. It's a great follow up to his debut book The Long Tail.

In the book he discusses how free (as in zero dollars) can be used as a value proposition and as he demonstrates a solid business model.

This quote from page 88 really stood out to me:
"...a technologist's job is not to figure out what technology is good for. Instead it is to make technology so cheap, easy to use, and ubiquitous that anybody can use it, so that it propagates around the world and into every possible niche.

"We, the users, will figure out what to do with it, because each of us is different: different needs, different ideas, different knowledge, and different ways of interacting with the world."

What he is saying is, focus on the product, making it cheaper, easier and ubiqutous. Your users will figure out the best way to use it (stop forcing them to do it your way).

This is almost exactly the opposite of what has happened with broadband in New Zealand. Broadband needs to be so close to free we don't care about using it.

Case in point: my German friend was telling me back home free movie downloads were given away as incentives. That would never fly here as people would use their whole cap just trying to get their freebie.

I know this is a complex argument but come on, it's long overdue, we need ubiqitious broadband yesterday....

Thoughts? What will you do when broadband is virtually free?

*Ben Young of bwagy.com is the author of The Best Ideas are Free.