Over the past several years, I have become increasingly sensitive to time (midlife crisis perhaps?). The amount of time spent waiting (in line at Starbucks, in traffic, for those who think a 9am meeting starts at 9:30) or suffering web services that just plain suck is less bearable than it was yesterday. My self-importance is not such that I feel that my time is any more valuable than yours. What I realize is that we are all too willing to spend this precious resource in the name of “free”, without considering its true cost. Do you know how much a second, a minute, an hour is worth to you? It is impossible to measure our own value of time when we don’t know how much remains.
The experience of developing Kayanta taught me that it was not that these other services sucked, so to speak. It was that they were designed to maximize revenue as opposed to maximizing value. The services of which I speak are based solely on advertising revenue models. These models, by their very nature (CPM in particular), do not have the consumer’s best interest at heart. It’s more accurate to refer to these as “revenue experiences” as opposed to “user experiences”.
But what can we do to keep “free” free? I have a solution and it costs $0.99.
Pandora Radio is my favorite example of a web service whose value far exceeds its cost. I value their service so much that if I hear a song that I like while using their service, I click through the site to purchase it. The affiliate revenue they receive from my purchase has apparently not kept them from needing to insert audio ads, however. But together we can keep this service and others like it free, $0.99 at a time.
And if you must advertise, Pandora’s advertisements are never intrusive and actually quite appealing. But I’m afraid you must excuse me now. I have to click through the WBUR site to buy a book that I just heard about on NPR. I guess free cost me $10.88 today. I’m OK with that.
