So I’m driving into work this morning listening to Pandora on my iPhone through my car stereo and something new happened. About every 3rd song a nice young woman comes on and says “Would you like to listen to Pandora without interruption? You can for only $36.00 a year. Just click on the button on your mobile device.”
My commute is about 45 minutes. I heard the ad about three times.
For just $3.00 a month I could listen interruption free. That’s good pricing. I signed up.
The psychology of parting with the value of our time turned into money fascinates me. So let’s look at the 3 dollar dilemma.
- I will pay $3.00 a month to avoid commercials on Pandora for my drive in to work but
- I will bitch about paying $3.00 a gallon for the gas I’m burning on that commute.
- I won’t think twice about paying $3.00 for the cup of coffee I’ll buy at Starbucks on my way but
- I resent paying $3.00 to get money out of an ATM to pay for my Starbucks.
I heard Bank of America is going to start charging for checking! Outrageous! Greedy bastards.
How can they charge people to have global 24/7/365 access to their money?
Would your members pay $3.00 a month for that convenience?
The 2020 Vision of Marketing 
5 comments
Comments feed for this article
July 23, 2010 at 7:33 am
Jlarranaga
We live in a “Free Economy” where everything online only appears to be free until you unlock the more robust features.
I pay for things I like too!
July 27, 2010 at 10:10 pm
Kris
I think we’ve become so greedy because of all of the freedom the technological age has opened up to us. So very much stuff is free that when we have to pay for something, it’s viewed as an insult.
The psychology of money and what it means to us (regardless of dollar amount), in relation to how we’re spending it is fascinating. The only thing I can figure is that if we are going to directly consume it (music, food, etc) we care less than when it’s intangible or something that is negatively newsworthy (fees, gas). Yet, we spend the money just the same.
It makes me think of the people who will spend significantly more money buying things on sale that they wouldn’t have bought in the first place, if it wasn’t such a “good deal”.
July 28, 2010 at 10:22 am
Ken Gardner
I think you hit the nail on the head. People are willing to pay for things that provide them a good value. And while I’m sure we all would say CUs do that already, sometimes we don’t do a very good job of communicating that value to our members.
July 29, 2010 at 6:46 am
Thomas Bowen
Look who has gotten you unblocked! Sorry, I hope that I have not upset your record for being blocked via website access! Is this really a discussion about a $3 dollar bill? Sorry…NO COMMENT!
July 29, 2010 at 7:48 am
Denise Wymore
Welcome back Thomas!