“Sooner or later people are going to get addicted to some of these services and they’ll be willing to pay for it.”
- John Malone, the chairman Liberty Media, quoted by The Guardian about his belief that consumers will eventually pay for their favorite online services.
His comments begs a few questions:
1. what online services would you pay to use?
2. How much would you be willing to pay for them?
3. Is pay-to-play going to have a bigger role in the future of online services?
They are interesting questions because, in theory, you can understand why getting consumers to pay for the services they use makes sense for many people. Malone, for example, has been running cable services in which consumers happily pay healthy amounts of money to watch TV and movies.
In the Web 2.0 world, however, free – and, to some extend, freemium – has become a key element of the competitive landscape. Even services that people are “addicted to” have a difficult time convincing people to upgrade to the paid version from the free version.
For some services such as Google and Facebook, free works because you can attract a big enough audience that they become attractive to advertisers.
For many others, however, they struggle with free because the number of users never gets big enough – even if the service they’re offering is excellent and useful.
So, what would you be willing to pay to use?
What about Twitter? For many of us, Twitter has become an essential communications, marketing and sales tool. So what if Twitter announced one day that consumer accounts would now be $2/month while businesses would have to pay $5/month? Would you pony up the two bucks, or would you and many of your friends looking for another free micro-blogging service?
Personally, I’d pay at least $2/month to use Twitter. I’d pay to use Techmeme. I’d probably pay to use Wordpress if came with some premium services.
What about you? What services would you pay to use? And what services are you paying to use now?
More: For more on how Twitter might be able to monetize its popularity, check out the New York Times’ DealBook.
6 Comments
this is the (insert large dollar amount here) question. in fact it may well be the only question. unless we honestly address it, the internet's business models are not sustainable, because advertising alone will not address the problem.
I would (and do) pay for services that provide hard benefits to me in a business context. I don't pay for entertainment or soft benefits. I would pay for twitter only because it is an important channel for businesses, brands, freelancers, etc.
I will probably upgrade to Google Apps Premier Edition soon. It seems very work the small yearly cost.
Remember the Milk is one service I pay $25/year for. It is worth it to have that data available everywhere – web app, in Gmail, and an iPhone app.
Currently free but i would pay for the following
- Blogger
- Skype (depending on how many people dropped out if they charged for a flat account).
- Asterisk
As a web developer, and like most people my age, I use the Internet constantly.
However, after spending any amount of time at the cottage where there is no digital access to anything, I truly realize how little little would be missing from my life without online access.
After about 5 minutes of arriving, I don't even notice that I'm not checking my email every 60 seconds!
I would never pay for any "social" or entertainment service.
The only online service I currently pay for is 20 bucks a month to FreshBooks – and I could certainly go back to invoicing people the old fashioned way!
As a web developer, and like most people my age, I use the Internet constantly.
However, after spending any amount of time at the cottage where there is no digital access to anything, I truly realize how little little would be missing from my life without online access.
After about 5 minutes of arriving, I don't even notice that I'm not checking my email every 60 seconds!
I would never pay for any "social" or entertainment service.
The only online service I currently pay for is 20 bucks a month to FreshBooks – and I could certainly go back to invoicing people the old fashioned way!