"Free is a different animal from any price": paid content rumbles on
Micropayments and the power of free
WriteRoom used to cost $4.99. And last Thursday, at that price, it sold nine copies.
Then Jesse decided to make WriteRoom free for three days. In that long weekend, his application was downloaded a whopping 16,347 times.
Then, starting Monday, he brought back a price — this time, only 99 cents. In the first two days at that price, he averaged 72 sales a day.
Now, selling iPhone apps isn’t precisely analogous to selling individual news stories, for a variety of reasons. And any number of external factors could have influenced Jesse’s numbers. But it’s also another bit of evidence of how enormously price-sensitive people are in a digital environment. As Chris Anderson will tell you, free is an entirely different animal from any price — even one as insignificant as 99 cents. If you can afford an iPhone, you can afford 99 cents for an app. But even for this relatively upmarket crowd, that tiny sum was a huge barrier. Journalists who think their audiences will happily start paying a nickel/quarter/dollar for every story they click on should take note.
Joshua Benton | Aug. 27 | 12:06 p.m.
