3 ms·

im not sure this is a good idea (as a consumer) anything which injects extra buying decisions in my life seems like a bad idea. Imagine having to wonder if I re

im not sure this is a good idea (as a consumer) anything which injects extra buying decisions in my life seems like a bad idea. Imagine having to wonder if I really wanted to spend that 0.01 cents on the next page of popular mechanics or not. I'd rather pay more for say, unlimited monthly access

onion2k 9y ago
This has been the predominant reason for micro-transaction services failing in the past - when something costs more than zero there has to be a conscious decision made on the part of the consumer, and that decision making process is often enough of a barrier to stop them purchasing. For something very cheap the financial cost itself may be irrelevant but the cognitive cost of making a decision definitely isn't. That problem is compounded by the fact a very low cost equates to a very low value in the mind of the purchaser. This manifests as a thought process like "if this only costs 0.01c then it's probably not worth buying", and the user leaves. That's hard to work around. As far as I'm aware no one has ever implemented micro-transactions successfully. The best example to date, which is mobile gaming in-app purchases, isn't really micro-transactions in the usual sense. In a game like Candy Crush you buy tools to help you advance more quickly so you don't have to grind through a hard level dozens of times. You're really buying your own time (so you can play the game less, which is kind of weird really). Time is something people value, so they're very happy to pay. The model doesn't really apply to other purchases.
kelnos 9y ago
That's the thing that really annoys me about human psychology (to which I myself am of course not immune). I don't subscribe to any sites that offer subscriptions because I rarely visit any one particular site to make it worth it (I rarely, if ever, run into, for example, the NYT free article limit). I block all ads, but I certainly wouldn't mind paying a reasonable per-article price all the same. By not offering per-article pricing, they're actually _losing_ money from me, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if going to per-article pricing would result in less revenue than monthly subscriptions overall.

onion2k 9y ago

This has been the predominant reason for micro-transaction services failing in the past - when something costs more than zero there has to be a conscious decision made on the part of the consumer, and that decision making process is often enough of a barrier to stop them purchasing. For something very cheap the financial cost itself may be irrelevant but the cognitive cost of making a decision definitely isn't. That problem is compounded by the fact a very low cost equates to a very low value in the mind of the purchaser. This manifests as a thought process like "if this only costs 0.01c then it's probably not worth buying", and the user leaves. That's hard to work around. As far as I'm aware no one has ever implemented micro-transactions successfully. The best example to date, which is mobile gaming in-app purchases, isn't really micro-transactions in the usual sense. In a game like Candy Crush you buy tools to help you advance more quickly so you don't have to grind through a hard level dozens of times. You're really buying your own time (so you can play the game less, which is kind of weird really). Time is something people value, so they're very happy to pay. The model doesn't really apply to other purchases.

kelnos 9y ago

That's the thing that really annoys me about human psychology (to which I myself am of course not immune). I don't subscribe to any sites that offer subscriptions because I rarely visit any one particular site to make it worth it (I rarely, if ever, run into, for example, the NYT free article limit). I block all ads, but I certainly wouldn't mind paying a reasonable per-article price all the same. By not offering per-article pricing, they're actually _losing_ money from me, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if going to per-article pricing would result in less revenue than monthly subscriptions overall.