What Will You Pay For?

Nielsen recently released a study on consumer attitudes about paid online entertainment. The study included what kinds of online content people have paid for in the past, as well as what they say they are willing to pay for in the future. The items that they've been most amenable to paying for include movies, music and games. But news is one of the categories that they are least likely to pay for.

The reason that people seem to be reluctant to pay for news is that they view it more as a commodity. If you can't get the news from one source (e.g. The New York Times), they can get it from another. Consumers, in general, do not show a strong brand loyalty to news sources when faced with a choice of paid or free services.

Still, the bottom line on the Nielsen survey is that consumers do not show an appetite for paying for much of anything online. Even those categories that are on the top of the list of what people would consider paying for are still barely over 50%.