The Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism posts a rundown of last week’s top stories – focusing on reax to Google’s Buzz debacle and Warner Music shunning free music services.

In the blogosphere, the top subject was the news that Warner Music was no longer going to support free online music streaming services such as Spotify, We7 and Last.fm. From February 8-12, this topic received 19% of the week’s links according to the New Media Index produced by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

The company decided it would instead focus more on paid music services online, a decision that spurred a flurry of discussion on blogs about online business models. Most of the commentators strongly criticized Warner’s plan, saying sites that charge for content just won’t work.

I don’t know how many times this same ridiculous argument can be thrown out and still get traction.  Let’s look at the history of “free” versus “pay” and see where it takes us.

When cable rolled out a new business model that charged people for television, the experiment was met with cries of “that will never work.”  Who would pay for television if the broadcasters are giving it away for free?  Thirty years later, cable operators and programmers are still profitable, while broadcasters are having trouble keeping the lights on with a “free” model.  Those broadcasters are increasingly looking to cable companies as their salvation – passing along four-fold increases in the payments they are demanding – since cable’s subscribers are one of their few profitable business lines.

But music is different, right?  Music isn’t like TV.  There’s no way to stem the tide of free music.

If that were true, why did people start paying for satellite radio?  I signed up for Sirius knowing that I could get good old fashioned FM for free.  I did so because the choice, lack of commercials, and nationwide availability were appealing.

But Internet music is really different.  When you are in your car, those things matter.  But nobody will pay for Internet music.

Well, the good folks at Apple might beg to differ.  They’re currently holding a promotion to celebrate their 10 billionth song download.  Amazon is doing a pretty brisk trade as well.

In fact, just about everywhere you look, companies that are holding on to their pay model are doing fairly well.  Why is that?

People, it turns out, are generally inclined to pay for things.  They recognize that product represents someone’s hard work and are willing to pay the creator for their enjoyment of it.  They also recognize, as much as this bothers the Free Culture crowd, that professional production, promotion, and distribution do, in fact, aid the artist.

Pay models are still quite successful. Just because businesses are experimenting with the right balance of selection, distribution, production, pricing and bundling doesn’t mean “free is the new black.”  Some companies will experiment with free.  Others, like Warner Music, will develop models that rely on payment.

To suggest that only free can be successful is to fall back on tired and disproved rhetoric.