80% of US Consumers Won't Pay For Online Content
According to a new Forrester survey, almost 80% of Internet users in the US and Canada would not pay for access to newspaper and magazine websites. Those users who would consider paying for content are mostly interested in subscriptions. Only a very small number of consumers is interested in making micropayments (3%). The study also asked which distribution channel consumers would prefer if their favorite print publications ceased to exist. 37% preferred the web, 14% mobile phones and 11% would prefer to read the content on their laptops or netbooks. 10% would prefer PDFs delivered by email and 3% would read the content on their e-readers.
44% of all respondents said that they wouldn't be interested in getting their print content through any of these delivery mechanisms.
Who Is Willing to Pay?
Forrester's Sarah Rotman Epps took a closer look at the demographic profile of those users who said that they would be willing to pay. Gender and marital status had no influence on a consumer's willingness to pay. Those who are willing to pay for magazine content are slightly younger that those who won't (43 years vs. 47). For newspaper content, however, there was no difference. Income, too, only makes a small difference. Those with a higher income are slightly more likely to pay for newspaper content than for magazines.
The report concludes that there is no consensus among consumers about how they want content delivered to them. The fact that 10% still prefer PDFs clearly shows that we are still in a transitional period. What is clear, though, is that consumers aren't very willing to pay for content online.
According to Forrester, publishers have two options: continue to offer a free, ad-supported product or offer consumers "a choice of multichannel subscriptions, single-channel subscriptions, and micropayments for premium product access."
As Rotman Epps also notes, there is a third solution: have a third party subsidize the cost of the content. This could be a device manufacturer who wants to offer exclusive content, for example.
A Slightly More Optimistic View
According to a report in the New York Times, about 48% of all Internet users in the US said that they would pay to read news online. This study by the Boston Consulting Group also looked at online news in general and found that a larger number of users was willing to pay. On average, though, these users were only willing to pay about $3.
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Is ReadWriteWeb going towards paid content ... http://tinyurl.com/ylg4hzv
I hope Rupert Murdoch reads this research.
People will pay as long as the content is valuable and is of personal interest, i.e. Wall Street Journal. Unfortunately, most news sites are just regurgitated from the AP. Cough - Fox news isn't really news
There is a lot of people scoring with content online, such as cartoonsmart, lynda.com the list is long. As Shane says, I totally agree, has to be quality content and not cut and paste.
Media companies need to do an about face regarding web analytics. Web analytics give publishers a critical measure of the popularity of the content that is provided, but web analytics, while critical to online businesses, only tell part of the story—providing providing information about the offering, but not about the customer himself. Segmentation and understanding each customer’s demand are critical to this problem.
"On average, though, these users were only willing to pay about $3"
Per day/week/month/year ??
This is interesting, please tell...
Why shall I pay for more information to my overloaded living? There are so much to digest already.
I think it is not time to charge users online especially in this crisis time. But I do hope that in the near future, this will be changed but not now
Consider people are answering now in a world where Web content is free. It's reasonable to think that you are not willing to pay in such scenario, the question is would people pay in a world where most mainstream content is NOT available for free? Compare this with Pay TVs. In Italy all TV content used to be free until two years ago, more or less. Pretty much everyone at that time would answer they'd never pay for TV content but now they're doing it. I think it's nearly impossible to judge this in advance.
The Millennial generation is currently talking about this topic on the Next Great Generation website, in regards to Hulu. General consensus there is that young people won't tolerate paying for content. Check it out: http://www.thenextgreatgeneration.com/2009/11/16/hulu-gonna-buy/
I don't believe the research here.
Go ask people on the street if they will pay to buy fertilizer that doesn't exist to grow imaginary food on virtual farms that their friends cultivate in video games. And yet another sucker opens his wallet to this fraud every minute....
When the only good content costs money, people will pay.
This is precisely why social media and pretty much everything on the Internet are bound to live from advertising income. It's a consequence of the freebies culture.
Watch for your weekly 'morning smile'coming to your email in box for just $2.97 per month for five strip comics from HarleyDawg Entertainment. See you on the web!
Selling content on the web has less to do with social mores - people are used to getting a free ride - than it does with the nature of digital media.
This doesn't mean it's impossible to sell content, but that it really challenges business models. Typically, the people who want us to pay are those with analog business models: newspapers, record companies, TV, Hollywood...
Keep in mind, many of us already pay more for information than we do for food. We buy internet connections, telephony, web hosting, publishing services (video, for example), satellite or cable TV and so on.
1. High quality content = ability to charge
2. 20% of US consumers is a big enough market. Key is to find and reach them. There are enough indicators to act on per the Forrester study
3. In addition, it is key to differentiate content between paying vs. non-paying readers. Wall Street Journal does this, for example.
4. You could go for other pricing models such as free content sponsored by advertisers. It is already being done on many websites where you have to watch a 15-second ad to see free content.
5. BusinessWeek Business Exchange is a great mechanism to engage external writers and make their content available to readers for free.
I think in the near future,people will paying to read the article quality.