Three Checkboxes To Get People To Pay For Content?
from the pick-two-of-three dept
Jon sends in one of the more amusing opinion pieces written about conditions needed to get people to actually pay for content, written in the Guardian by Paul Carr. You have to get past the drunken bar fight part (which is what makes the article amusing) to the theory, which is that to get people to pay for content, it needs to hit at least two of the following three conditions:- An experience that can't be replaced anywhere else for free.
- Making the purchase incredibly easy (key point: the real "cost" is price + hassle, so lowering the hassle factor is like dropping the cost)
- At the end, the buyer actually "owns" the purchase, rather than just "accessing" content.
The second point definitely does make sense. People absolutely are willing to pay for convenience... but, again, that second point goes away if the first point isn't there. That is, no matter how hassle free the buying process might be, if the experience can be substituted by a free option, then the ease of the buying process probably doesn't matter too much.
The third point is also somewhat in dispute. I do agree that if people are paying for "content," it's important that they get some sort of ownership and control over it, but I actually think that there's something to paying for access, depending on what that access is. Access to content? Eh. Access to people, however... is quite different.
So, while I'm not convinced that these three checkboxes work, it still makes for an amusing and worthwhile read if you're trying to understand these sorts of business models.
Filed Under: content, paying for content