8 ms·

As someone who has used this argument a lot, both here on HN as well as on websites to sell stuff, I feel the need to defend it now. When someone downloads a sh

by Udo 13y ago

As someone who has used this argument a lot, both here on HN as well as on websites to sell stuff, I feel the need to defend it now. When someone downloads a show or a movie from Netflix or elsewhere, $2 is not a huge investment. You'll be spending upwards of 40 minutes of your life watching this thing and being entertained by it. If a show is worth that kind of time, it's certainly worth $2 (or more) to support the people who made it. In fact, as a European who regularly gets prevented from doing so, you should count yourself lucky that they allow you to pay for it in the first place. Also, I don't know a lot of places where you can even get a decent latte for $2 anymore. People seem to sweat investing $2 per download for anything, even if they thoroughly enjoy the product, but they don't even think about spending $10 at the coffee shop. It's that kind of disconnect people are trying to address by invoking the latte thing.

davidjgraph 13y ago
He said 2GBP, not 2USD. This kinda suggests he might also live in Europe...
- taoufix 13y ago
  $3.04 as of today's conversion rate.
  - nijk 13y ago
    Wow, it has been 2:1 for a while, hasn't it? USD recovered?
- buster 13y ago
  But.. you know, Europe is not a country, he could live in hawaii for that matter. Netflix is unfortunately not available in the majority of european countries.
  - lucian1900 13y ago
    It is in the UK, the only place where that currency is used.
praptak 13y ago
> You'll be spending upwards of 40 minutes of your life watching this thing I view it as investing 40 minutes of my life on top of the $2. There's so much of the free "hilarious, must watch" links to click that I won't even spend 1 cent unless I'm damn sure it's worth it. Not that I'm defending $10 lattes anyway but they are at least 99% predictable.
- nijk 13y ago
  Interesting that you spend your hard-capped time freely, but are thrifty with your uncapped money. Maybe you should be more careful about how you invest your time, and choose the best content for your maximal enjoyment.
- Cthulhu_ 13y ago
  You know, that is a similar argument used by people to justify piracy; "I don't know if it's good, so why should I pay for it?" And still they pirate it, watch or play it for free, and are entertained for X period of time. Or not, but even so, their time has been spent, and their money hasn't. Even so, $2 isn't a huge loss if what you bought turns out to not have been worth it. And if you worry about the 40 minutes lost, then you need to learn to relax. Time wastage is not a bad thing per se.
  - bpatrianakos 13y ago
    I wouldn't call it an argument to justify piracy but rather an excuse. The idea a lot of times is "I don't want to pay so I'll justify my behavior by telling people it's a political/ideological statement". Furthermore, the predictability of coffee versus entertainment is not a good comparison. When you buy a movie or book or video game or something you're not guaranteed to like the product. But no one is forcing you to buy it either. So to take it free and then say "oh, didn't like it, not paying" is the lamest thing in the world and I'd be willing to bet that if you could drink coffee before you bought it (so you can decide whether it's "worth paying for") there'd be rampant coffee piracy. You're really not guaranteed to like anything you buy but if it comes in the form of a digital file suddenly people feel like it's alright to "try before you (maybe never) buy". The reason why movie trailers, singles that get played on the radio, 30 second song/video clip previews, and game demos exist is so you can see if what you're thinking of buying fits your taste. Needing the entire thing to decide sounds like such an excuse to justify not paying. People do need to relax like you said. Have we shoved our heads so far up our asses that 40 minutes spent watching a bad TV show is a sin? I can get on board with the whole being efficient thing but there comes a point where worrying about whether consuming some media for 40 minutes will waste your time is actually worse than wasting the 40 minutes itself. (And can't we tell if we don't like something long before the 40 minute mark? I mean, we can quit watching/listening/whatever when we figure out we don't like something)
_jmar777 13y ago
I think his point and yours are both fair enough. At the end of the day though, whether it's $2, £2, or £2k, it's really just a matter of ROI. The latte comparison is somewhat easy: most people like it, and it's (relatively) cheap. The argument at a more fundamental level doesn't extrapolate very well, though - I think it only survives on latte for the aforementioned reasons.
Kurtz79 13y ago
I think that how much exactly 2 pounds are worth is something so subjective that I agree that the original rant feels childish. From an advertising standpoint, the latte example makes sense, because it's something a large chunk of people (in the US/UK) can make a quick mental comparison. In Italy I have seen many similar examples comparing goods and services to an espresso, or the price of going out for a pizza. It's a given that for many people the 2 bucks spent on a Latte are completely worth it: I don't see why anyone should find the comparison offensive. It's not like someone is criticising how you spend your 2 pounds. It's advertising. If you don't find the argument valid, just keep enjoying your Latte, and life goes on as usual.
- JoeAltmaier 13y ago
  The OP confused the argument. It isn't either-or. Most folks can have both!
vijayr 13y ago
This has bothered me too. The other day, I was talking about email (fastmail, rackspace etc) with a couple of colleagues - both of them scoffed at the idea of paying for email. The very same people who go to starbucks every single day, dropping 5$ for a cup of latte. Why wouldn't they pay for something as fundamental, and as important for email? I truly couldn't understand. Everything from banking to dating, lives in our email and yet they wouldn't pay. If this is the case with people who work in the tech world, and understand privacy etc very well, what about a "normal" person? Perhaps the answer is that people have gotten used to everything being "free" on the internet. May be they think that the cable (or internet) bill is more than enough, and they are entitled to get everything for free online, including movies etc?
- sigkill 13y ago
  I feel that I was a bit late to the game at 24 to buy my own domain and host my email. For one, I can stick to atleast the address for my life unless, you know, the ICANN is overthrown or something. Having something professional costs way less than any of the impulse purchases that people around me make yet they scoff at the idea of paying $10 for domain and w/e else for email. You can also set it up for free if you spend a few hours on google. It did take me time, but I have realized that emails and email addresses are NOT going away anytime soon, might as well have something permanent.
- snowwrestler 13y ago
  It's not paying for email, it's paying for a particular kind of privacy: you're basically paying to prevent software from reading your email to better match ads. To me that is not worth much. I don't care if software reads my email, and I don't care if my email interface contains a few text ads. As far as I can tell, paying for your email does not get you any real increase in privacy. Rackspace staff can read your email just as easily as Google staff can read Gmail (it's strictly against company policy in both places, but still technically possible). If the FBI issues a subpoena for your email, both Rackspace and Google will be legally compelled to give it up.
  - steven777400 13y ago
benjamincburns 13y ago
In my head this marketing argument always boils down to "What, you waste money on overpriced coffee, why not waste your money here too?!" I think telling the consumer "hey, this is an impulse purchase" is going to trigger their "oh shit, I need to stop making stupid impulse buys" response. Also, I envision the marketer thinking of me as part of a herd of cud-chewing cattle, or worse, like one of the people on the conveyer belt in Relead's god-awful landing page [1]. It's angering in some low-level way. Is this really how marketers think of consumers? 1: http://www.relead.com http://www.relead.com Edit: > People seem to sweat investing $2 per download for anything, even if they thoroughly enjoy the product, but they don't even think about spending $10 at the coffee shop. Maybe you'll see less of this if you drop the "less than your stupid latte, dumbass" sales tactic. Edit 2: Sorry, that was a really jerk way to make my point, and I apologize below. Leaving it here however to preserve the thread.
- Udo 13y ago
  > Maybe you'll see less of this if you drop the "less than your stupid latte, dumbass" sales tactic. Wow, that was unnecessarily abrasive. It's not unreasonable to expect a product to cost something, even if it's virtual. And nobody is suggesting putting the latte analogy as advertisement on the front page of services. > "What, you waste money on overpriced coffee, why not waste your money here too?!" That's entirely beside the point. The assumption is that nobody wastes anything. It's an analogy about paying for electronic goods. And just because something does not cost a lot of money doesn't mean it's an impulse buy either.
  - famousactress 13y ago
    I disagree with you, I'm with Benjamin on this one. A purchasing decision is weighing pleasure against the pain of parting with funds. These ads generally don't do anything to invoke pleasure. They assume you've already decided how much pleasure you'll get from Netflix, or whatever the product is, and now are grappling to wrap your head around how much it will hurt to part with the funds. They choose a compulsory, daily purchase that many people make for a reason and I think Benjamin's arguments are totally valid. I think the psychology here is clearly "It's not enough money for you to think hard about dear, don't hurt your head with the math and just go for it". Absolutely it's telling the target that this is cheap enough to be an impulse buy that they don't need to think hard about. [Disclosure: Ridiculously happy Netflix customer since '98 or so.]
joepet 13y ago
I thinks it's kind of value psychology, everyone got stuck in their minds that if there're so much shitty content online for free - good content equaly should be free (however no logic or connection here), and when we talk about coffee, barely anyone can think of many posibilities to get it for free...
eli_gottlieb 13y ago
Most of the time when I hesitate over something like that it's because of the DRM. As Randall Munroe put it, "In the end, you'll be a criminal anyway."
onli 13y ago
> but they don't even think about spending $10 at the coffee shop Sure those people exist, but don't forget that not all are like that. I wouldn't even consider spending that much at a coffee shop, especially not regularly.
glurgh 13y ago
One big difference is, nobody selling coffee is competing against a vast, easily accessible sea of competitors handing out coffee for free. The transaction cost is also much lower - you don't have to fill out a form, you dig into your pocket and fish out some change. Your pocket carries change without any need for a confirmation email. And you can easily pick between the $5 coffee, the $2 coffee or the $0.50 caffeinated can of sugar water. But however small, these still involve the exchange of money. The analogy would work if at every door in your city, there was someone handing out possibly mediocre coffee to every morning commuter. Along with a flyer containing some offers that you don't have to take but maybe would consider reading while on the train. You can imagine what this is going to do to the business of the really nice couple who hand-select their beans from fair-trade producers in Brazil and just invested in a $15,000 espresso machine.
Groxx 13y ago
People sweat giving their credit card information to every random site they have at least $2 of interest in. Sites get hacked, reducing the odds that you're one of the random victims is probably the best you can do to reduce your risk. Meanwhile, that local coffee shop will probably still be standing there in a week, doesn't hold your card info (just swipes it temporarily), and you can go back and pound them in person if they do something wrong.
6d0debc071 13y ago
I don't pay $2 an episode on DVD - and then it's mine for years. Six disc boxsets of 18-20 episodes are going for 12-15 quid. The download should not be more expensive than the physical item - it shouldn't even be in the same ballpark. It's very difficult to believe that, when you average it out, the fair market price for a movie download is $2. It's, to all intents and purposes free once you've paid for the cost of production. Now coffee, by comparison, is relatively expensive to make and transport than then pay those little coffee house people to turn the machine on for you. There are a lot more palms to grease in the coffee business. It's not even close to comparable. And it's not as if coffee sets the price at $2/40 minutes pleasure anyway. You only need a few cups of coffee for the entire day, and then you've got the rest of the experience - at least if you're in a decent coffee shop. It just doesn't make any sense - the things shouldn't, on what it costs to make, be that expensive. And in terms of pleasure the equation's massively inaccurate.

by Udo 13y ago

davidjgraph 13y ago

He said 2GBP, not 2USD. This kinda suggests he might also live in Europe...

taoufix 13y ago
$3.04 as of today's conversion rate.
- nijk 13y ago
  Wow, it has been 2:1 for a while, hasn't it? USD recovered?
buster 13y ago
But.. you know, Europe is not a country, he could live in hawaii for that matter. Netflix is unfortunately not available in the majority of european countries.
- lucian1900 13y ago
  It is in the UK, the only place where that currency is used.

praptak 13y ago

> You'll be spending upwards of 40 minutes of your life watching this thing I view it as investing 40 minutes of my life on top of the $2. There's so much of the free "hilarious, must watch" links to click that I won't even spend 1 cent unless I'm damn sure it's worth it. Not that I'm defending $10 lattes anyway but they are at least 99% predictable.

nijk 13y ago
Interesting that you spend your hard-capped time freely, but are thrifty with your uncapped money. Maybe you should be more careful about how you invest your time, and choose the best content for your maximal enjoyment.
Cthulhu_ 13y ago
You know, that is a similar argument used by people to justify piracy; "I don't know if it's good, so why should I pay for it?" And still they pirate it, watch or play it for free, and are entertained for X period of time. Or not, but even so, their time has been spent, and their money hasn't. Even so, $2 isn't a huge loss if what you bought turns out to not have been worth it. And if you worry about the 40 minutes lost, then you need to learn to relax. Time wastage is not a bad thing per se.
- bpatrianakos 13y ago
  I wouldn't call it an argument to justify piracy but rather an excuse. The idea a lot of times is "I don't want to pay so I'll justify my behavior by telling people it's a political/ideological statement". Furthermore, the predictability of coffee versus entertainment is not a good comparison. When you buy a movie or book or video game or something you're not guaranteed to like the product. But no one is forcing you to buy it either. So to take it free and then say "oh, didn't like it, not paying" is the lamest thing in the world and I'd be willing to bet that if you could drink coffee before you bought it (so you can decide whether it's "worth paying for") there'd be rampant coffee piracy. You're really not guaranteed to like anything you buy but if it comes in the form of a digital file suddenly people feel like it's alright to "try before you (maybe never) buy". The reason why movie trailers, singles that get played on the radio, 30 second song/video clip previews, and game demos exist is so you can see if what you're thinking of buying fits your taste. Needing the entire thing to decide sounds like such an excuse to justify not paying. People do need to relax like you said. Have we shoved our heads so far up our asses that 40 minutes spent watching a bad TV show is a sin? I can get on board with the whole being efficient thing but there comes a point where worrying about whether consuming some media for 40 minutes will waste your time is actually worse than wasting the 40 minutes itself. (And can't we tell if we don't like something long before the 40 minute mark? I mean, we can quit watching/listening/whatever when we figure out we don't like something)

_jmar777 13y ago

I think his point and yours are both fair enough. At the end of the day though, whether it's $2, £2, or £2k, it's really just a matter of ROI. The latte comparison is somewhat easy: most people like it, and it's (relatively) cheap. The argument at a more fundamental level doesn't extrapolate very well, though - I think it only survives on latte for the aforementioned reasons.

Kurtz79 13y ago

I think that how much exactly 2 pounds are worth is something so subjective that I agree that the original rant feels childish. From an advertising standpoint, the latte example makes sense, because it's something a large chunk of people (in the US/UK) can make a quick mental comparison. In Italy I have seen many similar examples comparing goods and services to an espresso, or the price of going out for a pizza. It's a given that for many people the 2 bucks spent on a Latte are completely worth it: I don't see why anyone should find the comparison offensive. It's not like someone is criticising how you spend your 2 pounds. It's advertising. If you don't find the argument valid, just keep enjoying your Latte, and life goes on as usual.

JoeAltmaier 13y ago
The OP confused the argument. It isn't either-or. Most folks can have both!

vijayr 13y ago

This has bothered me too. The other day, I was talking about email (fastmail, rackspace etc) with a couple of colleagues - both of them scoffed at the idea of paying for email. The very same people who go to starbucks every single day, dropping 5$ for a cup of latte. Why wouldn't they pay for something as fundamental, and as important for email? I truly couldn't understand. Everything from banking to dating, lives in our email and yet they wouldn't pay. If this is the case with people who work in the tech world, and understand privacy etc very well, what about a "normal" person? Perhaps the answer is that people have gotten used to everything being "free" on the internet. May be they think that the cable (or internet) bill is more than enough, and they are entitled to get everything for free online, including movies etc?

sigkill 13y ago
I feel that I was a bit late to the game at 24 to buy my own domain and host my email. For one, I can stick to atleast the address for my life unless, you know, the ICANN is overthrown or something. Having something professional costs way less than any of the impulse purchases that people around me make yet they scoff at the idea of paying $10 for domain and w/e else for email. You can also set it up for free if you spend a few hours on google. It did take me time, but I have realized that emails and email addresses are NOT going away anytime soon, might as well have something permanent.
snowwrestler 13y ago
It's not paying for email, it's paying for a particular kind of privacy: you're basically paying to prevent software from reading your email to better match ads. To me that is not worth much. I don't care if software reads my email, and I don't care if my email interface contains a few text ads. As far as I can tell, paying for your email does not get you any real increase in privacy. Rackspace staff can read your email just as easily as Google staff can read Gmail (it's strictly against company policy in both places, but still technically possible). If the FBI issues a subpoena for your email, both Rackspace and Google will be legally compelled to give it up.
- steven777400 13y ago

benjamincburns 13y ago

In my head this marketing argument always boils down to "What, you waste money on overpriced coffee, why not waste your money here too?!" I think telling the consumer "hey, this is an impulse purchase" is going to trigger their "oh shit, I need to stop making stupid impulse buys" response. Also, I envision the marketer thinking of me as part of a herd of cud-chewing cattle, or worse, like one of the people on the conveyer belt in Relead's god-awful landing page [1]. It's angering in some low-level way. Is this really how marketers think of consumers? 1: http://www.relead.com http://www.relead.com Edit: > People seem to sweat investing $2 per download for anything, even if they thoroughly enjoy the product, but they don't even think about spending $10 at the coffee shop. Maybe you'll see less of this if you drop the "less than your stupid latte, dumbass" sales tactic. Edit 2: Sorry, that was a really jerk way to make my point, and I apologize below. Leaving it here however to preserve the thread.

Udo 13y ago
> Maybe you'll see less of this if you drop the "less than your stupid latte, dumbass" sales tactic. Wow, that was unnecessarily abrasive. It's not unreasonable to expect a product to cost something, even if it's virtual. And nobody is suggesting putting the latte analogy as advertisement on the front page of services. > "What, you waste money on overpriced coffee, why not waste your money here too?!" That's entirely beside the point. The assumption is that nobody wastes anything. It's an analogy about paying for electronic goods. And just because something does not cost a lot of money doesn't mean it's an impulse buy either.
- famousactress 13y ago
  I disagree with you, I'm with Benjamin on this one. A purchasing decision is weighing pleasure against the pain of parting with funds. These ads generally don't do anything to invoke pleasure. They assume you've already decided how much pleasure you'll get from Netflix, or whatever the product is, and now are grappling to wrap your head around how much it will hurt to part with the funds. They choose a compulsory, daily purchase that many people make for a reason and I think Benjamin's arguments are totally valid. I think the psychology here is clearly "It's not enough money for you to think hard about dear, don't hurt your head with the math and just go for it". Absolutely it's telling the target that this is cheap enough to be an impulse buy that they don't need to think hard about. [Disclosure: Ridiculously happy Netflix customer since '98 or so.]

joepet 13y ago

I thinks it's kind of value psychology, everyone got stuck in their minds that if there're so much shitty content online for free - good content equaly should be free (however no logic or connection here), and when we talk about coffee, barely anyone can think of many posibilities to get it for free...

eli_gottlieb 13y ago

Most of the time when I hesitate over something like that it's because of the DRM. As Randall Munroe put it, "In the end, you'll be a criminal anyway."

onli 13y ago

> but they don't even think about spending $10 at the coffee shop Sure those people exist, but don't forget that not all are like that. I wouldn't even consider spending that much at a coffee shop, especially not regularly.

glurgh 13y ago

One big difference is, nobody selling coffee is competing against a vast, easily accessible sea of competitors handing out coffee for free. The transaction cost is also much lower - you don't have to fill out a form, you dig into your pocket and fish out some change. Your pocket carries change without any need for a confirmation email. And you can easily pick between the $5 coffee, the $2 coffee or the $0.50 caffeinated can of sugar water. But however small, these still involve the exchange of money. The analogy would work if at every door in your city, there was someone handing out possibly mediocre coffee to every morning commuter. Along with a flyer containing some offers that you don't have to take but maybe would consider reading while on the train. You can imagine what this is going to do to the business of the really nice couple who hand-select their beans from fair-trade producers in Brazil and just invested in a $15,000 espresso machine.

Groxx 13y ago

People sweat giving their credit card information to every random site they have at least $2 of interest in. Sites get hacked, reducing the odds that you're one of the random victims is probably the best you can do to reduce your risk. Meanwhile, that local coffee shop will probably still be standing there in a week, doesn't hold your card info (just swipes it temporarily), and you can go back and pound them in person if they do something wrong.

6d0debc071 13y ago

I don't pay $2 an episode on DVD - and then it's mine for years. Six disc boxsets of 18-20 episodes are going for 12-15 quid. The download should not be more expensive than the physical item - it shouldn't even be in the same ballpark. It's very difficult to believe that, when you average it out, the fair market price for a movie download is $2. It's, to all intents and purposes free once you've paid for the cost of production. Now coffee, by comparison, is relatively expensive to make and transport than then pay those little coffee house people to turn the machine on for you. There are a lot more palms to grease in the coffee business. It's not even close to comparable. And it's not as if coffee sets the price at $2/40 minutes pleasure anyway. You only need a few cups of coffee for the entire day, and then you've got the rest of the experience - at least if you're in a decent coffee shop. It just doesn't make any sense - the things shouldn't, on what it costs to make, be that expensive. And in terms of pleasure the equation's massively inaccurate.