Okay, so I was recently sitting back at home attempting to do some much needed study or should I say I was procrastinating in the attempt not to study- whoops
Anyway as often happens I wound up watching repeats of greys anatomy on foxtel- as often happens on days like these I became completely engrossed (or just enough to stop me from needing to pick up a text book) the show ended and I wanted/ needed to know what happened next. So online I went and ended up watching the next two episodes of greys. By this time it was too late to start studying : )
During the third episode a box appeared saying something along the lines of you have watched 120 minutes please wait 60 minutes before you may continue or to continue watching now click here. When you click it takes you through to a page where you can sign up to pay a certain monthly access fee which allows you to watch X time dependent on the amount you pay.
Well for me the answer was simple.
I closed the site and started watching TV again- by this time there were repeats of Sex and the City on so I was fine. But it just got me to thinking, would anyone really ever pay, I can’t imagine myself being so desperate that I cant wait another 60 minutes for a show but then again maybe some people would be… So does the freemium model work?
Any thoughts? Can anyone think of a time when they would pay to upgrade for a thing that they can basically get for free?
I have been in a really similar position to you!! I just went to google and found another site where I could watch it! I think that that is the main problem with the 'freemium' model - the internet has allowed for almost a free version of everything - so many websites have competitors that are cheaper or free - which is the part of the attraction of watching/buying/playing etc. online, and anyone can create a website with 'free' as the point of difference....so unless it is something completely unique that I could not find anywhere else at all (unlikely as it is), I doubt that I would pay extra!
ReplyDeleteYou can listen to music on the radio or on YouTube for free, yet the Apple Store is highly profitable.
ReplyDeleteLikewise I can torrent my movies, yet I still pay for them on DVD (although I refuse to pay for television series).
It may come down to time, your hate of banner ads or you're morals that don't let you steal content, but at the end of the day, different business models of freemium will work for different people.
If it didn't, the website wouldn't be up and running! ;]
I personally would never pay for a subscription to one of these sites. Especially when it is just as easy to download it rather than stream it. I use to use Surf the channel, which uses mega video, to watch Entourage. However, when my 120 minutes (or however long it is) was up, I would go to a different site and stream the series using a different movie player. Then after the 60 minutes was up, I'd go back to Surf the channel and mega video.
ReplyDeleteBecause there are so many different sites available which provide the service for free, it seems silly to pay. However, searching through these sites and finding ones which have decent quality episodes is time consuming and sometimes annoying. Therefore, if I wasn't a poor student and had money to burn, I might consider paying.
Me too.. I definitely would not pay for something that I can get it for free. If what I have to do is just waiting, I believe that I can wait.. probably not that desperate lol
ReplyDeleteBut this makes me think of another example that I saw from facebook game.. there are some options/products that you cannot buy except you will use the real money by paying through credit card, visa, master, whatever~ (overall, i mean options/ products in those games, not in real life) hmm... I don't think that someone would pay real money just for playing game on facebook :s but then I saw that some of my friends did that.. Perhaps, they are rich enough and addicted to that game