Behavioural economics of paywalls #paywalls11
I couldn't make it to Paywall Strategies 2011 today, but it's a subject that's very interesting to me so I thought it was a good time to write about it. The whole question of paying for online news - and other information - combines two of my main research areas. First, it's all about pricing, and one of the most interesting and important new phenomena in pricing at that. And second, because the argument can only be resolved with a deep understanding of cognitive incentives (and disincentives). In fact, the area of micropayments was one of the earliest case studies I considered when getting into the pricing world several years ago. It's one of the clearest departures from conventional supply and demand dynamics. Here's an example: 13% of people say they would be willing to pay for content online. And yet only 4% do. Why the gap? Yes, there's always a difference between what people say they'll do, and what they actually do. But from experience wi...