Customers who don’t want to pay

The article by Kevin Kelly on ‘How to get people to pay’ refers to Dan Cook’s business model for game developers and suggests the wider implications for other business sectors in digital economy. However, that is as far as it goes. Kevin Kelly wants us to figure the rest out for ourselves.

These are Dan’s categories of users.

• People who don't want to pay: Advertising is a good option to keep around. A few hundred bucks is still money in the bank.
• People who are interested in more of the same: Once you've established the value of your game, some players want more. Give them more levels, more puzzles, more enemies in exchange for cash.
• People who are interested in status or identity improvements: Some people see games as means of expression and identity. Give them items that let them express themselves or customize their experience.
• People who have limited time: Some people live busy lives and want to consume your game when they desire and how they desire. Cheat codes, experience multipliers and other systems that bypass the typical progression all help satisfying this customer need.

What Dan shows us is the conceptual change of our understanding and perception of ‘customer’ in the digital economy. In the manufacturing industry, customers are the ones who are willing to pay in exchange of goods. In the digital economy, ‘People who don’t want to pay’ are considered and should be considered as part of customer categories. One of the key aspects of Chris Anderson’s freeconomics and current discussion over News Corp's adoption of fee model for their general news is uncovering and understanding ‘People who don’t want to pay’ category, the ‘redefined customers’.

It is certainly important to identify categories of users (customers) to design appropriate revenue streams and also recognize and accept ‘People who don’t want to pay’ category as a valued customer (because virtually it does not cost anything to provide a service for them in the digital economy as Chris Anderson argues). However, as for the future of the digital economy, the holy grail is to figure out how ‘People who don’t want to pay’, pay.