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A very good article indeed. Despite the suggestion of the title and opening, it takes its time getting around to the fact that nothing's really free... someone, somewhere, is going to pay for it... it just might not be the person who gets the product.
It does a nice job of covering many of the ways that e-books could be sold for cheap to free. Shifting from direct payment to subsidization, by either an advertiser or other institution, or by another product or service, makes a lot of sense. It still puts the burden on the producer to find their subsidizing entity or product, so it doesn't allow everyone to automatically profit from just being on the web. But as more and more web-based producers compete for subsidization, it might be interesting to see how that market will develop over time.
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