It Adds Up (and Up, and Up) [New York Times: Technology]
This article reaffirms my beliefs that there is PLENTY of money that people will spend on digital services and content. The problem has been up until now that the quality of the content and experience sucks and that there have been very few services folks will pay for.
But as time goes on, we'll figure out ways for EVERYONE to make some of that eCommerce cash, besides just eBay, Amazon, Experida and Match.com. Once Sony, Matsushita and Samsung get into the game - I think that Hollywood will come to their senses - lower their prices and offer reasonable usage terms (like after you pay for something - you get to still own it!)
Surprise, surprise - people are different and pay for different things - based upon their interests:
Many families consider extensive cable television access or unlimited cellphone use to be a greater priority than access to the Internet. Music lovers might tend to spend more for subscriptions to online jukeboxes or satellite radio systems. Frequent business travelers are likely to spend more than others for access to mobile wireless Internet services.
Disposable income spent on "information and entertainment has risen from 6% to over 10%. Bob Pittman talked about $159 a month being a goal.
Allan Tumolillo, the chief operating officer of Probe Research, a consulting firm in Cedar Knolls, N.J., that specializes in the telecommunications sector, said his biggest concern was consumer debt, which is now more than $1.7 trillion. Measured as a percentage of the nation's gross domestic product, that is the highest consumer debt level since the beginning of the Great Depression, according to government data.
"This new-economy thing of subscribe to this, subscribe to that gets to be a lot of money," Mr. Tumolillo said. "You end up with some people paying $500 to $1,000 a month between their cable service, their cellphones, their phone lines, their long distance, their Internet service provider, two or three information services, music videos, what have you."
Writing in an advisory for his clients in the telecommunications sector recently, Mr. Tumolillo suggested that baby boomers who are approaching retirement age during an economic downturn might change their habits.
"Where will consumers put their dollars?" he wrote. "On services like D.S.L., cable modems, multiple cellular lines, I.S.P. accounts, online gaming, other subscriber-based services? Or will they shift spending toward more home improvement, toward health care, savings, paying off debt? This is extraordinarily difficult to predict."
Ms. Boren suggested that perhaps the biggest cost of network creep was not in dollars but in the lost opportunities, amid the unrelenting buzz of a hyper-connected culture, to reflect quietly on the day's events or life in general. "The lack of a cellphone allows me to have unproductive moments," she said.
Here's a chart I did - reacting to a projection of $159 a month - called "AOL pipe dreams" (by some BigMedia mag.) Lots of things were right, but lots of other things were left out.
