Comments on: What Do You Pay For?

By: Page.ly Breaks the Speed Record for Website Creation | CenterNetworks

Page.ly Breaks the Speed Record for Website Creation | CenterNetworks — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 02:47:26 +0000

[...] this year Michael Galpert looked at what type of products and services we are willing to pay for. I think website creation tools are [...]

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Really thought provoking article Michael – especially the iTunes part!

By: Alex Hillman

Alex Hillman — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Michael’s commentary and vision is always sharp. This is some high quality stuff.

By: Michael G

Michael G — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks for the kind words all.

By: Miiko Mentz

Miiko Mentz — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Good post! The inherently lazy made me laugh. That’s totally me with iTunes. Even if I can get a song cheaper elsewhere, I won’t because it will take too much effort, with the exception of free of course. I download free songs on MySpace or iLike for artists I Iike and who offer free downloads. But if I have to pay, forget it, I just use iTunes because it’s a simple click and I’m done.

I agree on the other ones, too. We may want everything for free these days, but every now and then we do pay when we feel there’s a value proposition.

By: emediablogger

emediablogger — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I really favor the opposite opinion. I guess the scenario will become similar to supermarkets and luxury goods, there will not be much space in between. Ease of distribution is a key characteristic of the internet and user generated content is just at the beginning. Think about phone cams. Free offers are key means and a strategy to reach a critical mass. Something I personally may pay for is comfort and convenience e.g. a paid wireless service instead of an ad supported.

By: evano

evano — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I'll pay for necessity, which in this context is very similar to certainty. Gmail is great but, there's no guarantee it'll always be available, no guarantee it'll always be free, and no guarantee that one of their robots won't one day decide that I've done something wrong and lock me out of all my Google accounts. Email is a necessity, so I pay for a domain and hosting with SLA, and I back up all my Gmail via POP. Skype is fantastic and convenient, but their service has not always been terribly reliable, and access to Skype also depends on the availability of my Internet connection. So, although nowadays I hate making phone calls where I can't easily IM a link or a picture at the same time, I'm not going to depend on Skype's flakiness and growing pains for my home phone which has had a total outage tally of 1 or 2 hours in the 7 years I've been living at this address. I'll pay for the near-certainty of my land-line until some VoIP provider has a good solid track record of stability. That lack of certainty is also what keeps me from buying music from iTunes Music Store. Maybe it's an old-fashioned "bits v. atoms" thing, but DRM takes from me the ability to protect what I have purchased from unilateral rule-changes. (Like those at Yahoo Music, Sony & Microsoft, too.) And with the availability of DRM-free Amazon Music and eMusic and plenty of other places to purchase digital music without having to pick my butt up from my chair, ITMS isn't that much more convenient that it's worth paying a premium for their DRM-free stuff.