An Ongoing Lack of Imagination in Pricing (of Digital Content)

debbiestier:

maggiehilliard:

Interesting post about lack of creativity in digital pricing from Albert Wenger.

continuations:

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Yet despite such clear examples, Amazon, Apple, the New York Times, book publishers, etc all seem stuck on essentially the one price model.  Can we please have some more imagination in pricing?  It is time to start creating offers that let readers self select based on how much they value specific content.  How would this work?  In the case of the New York Times here is just one of many possible examples.  Put on a weekly series speaker series and make priority access to limited tickets / limited realtime online viewing spots part of a higher priced subscription.

please click-through and read the whole piece.  i highlighted the portion that rang true.

the web in general is struggling with the economics behind its real currency - original thoughts, ideas and content.  i’m interested to see how boxee’s plans pan-out.  they’re letting it ride vs. the establishment and i’m sort of glad about that.  the “establishment” has been making subtle attempts like this for years but now is the time to just make the gross change.  move forward and innovate, let everyone else catch-up.  fear is big right now (understandable).  you don’t want to piss off the “audience” or lose them.  fine.  but while they’re looking to you for content they’re also trusting in you to move the needle.  it’s an unspoken thread that rumbles across the web - if you’re in the position to “do it” and you’re not, what’s the point?

for generations, content pricing had the luxury of it’s delivery factoring into cost.  now it doesn’t.  advancing technology has allowed us to fully focus on the actual value of something and it’s why everyone is freaking out.  paying too much for stuff that doesn’t deserve it while paying too little for the stuff that does.

i’m a proponent of on-demand streaming access.  sure, “downloading” as an act that keeps a local copy of content available is predominant but that’s only b/c - in the USA - our peer-to-peer tech and bandwidth lags severely.  i’m convinced apple bought lala because of their biz model and tech combo.  it’s a service that saw the media future and had creative, scaled pricing.  i can spend to purchase/own something all-out but i’d also adopt the cost of caring for it (which I don’t want anymore - I have no need to be a slave to external hard drives).  OR, i can pay to simply have access to it.  it stays in one place.  i can use it and leave it there when i want.

that’s just enough.