How much would you pay to use Google?
The markets are going down. Advertising budgets will be among the first casualties. Consulting, sponsoring, training, advertising. All these things are scratched away in tough times, which might explain why Google’s stock has gone from 700$ to 400$ in the past months.
Let’s imagine for a second that the search giant needs cash. They have to make you pay for their service. Yes it’s a big stretch - Google with no cash is as plausible as, say, Arthur Andersen or Lehmann Brother going bust :D. But let’s imagine that. And here comes my question:
How much would you be willing to pay to use the search, Gmail, YouTube, Google Finance or Calendar? Would you run to the competitors if tomorrow each of these services was not free anymore?
Is Google leaving billions on the table because their users would stay with them even without a free pricetag? Or is that impossible because the end of free means the beginning of accountability and user support?
Can free last forever, and what happens if the answer is no?
October 2nd, 2008 at 11:46 pm
Since when using Google is free?
October 3rd, 2008 at 9:05 am
It’s free for me at least ;) How much do they get from you every month?
October 3rd, 2008 at 9:08 am
@ Laurent I am a believer of free. Chris Anderson’s author of The Long Tail has written a new book about FREE. http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/free/index.html
Besides that I think google has to be carefull to keep up the speed of their services.
With all the new possibilities things seem to get a little bit slower.
October 3rd, 2008 at 6:29 pm
I agree with free. I think it makes sense (especially when you consider that once people pay you need to support them, etc…).
But what if google has to make you pay? How much would you pay for their service? I think around 50 to 100$ per month for me (I’m using search, gmail, google video, calendar, now the reader, etc…). That’s a lot of money. And a lot of cash left on the table by Google… For how long?
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:23 pm
It’s a problem of how you define “free”. Everytime you do a search from Safari, Firefox or Opera Google gives some buck to them. Wow, my usage of that “free” tool pays the browser companies. Then, when I click on an ad while using, any of their services I’m making a company somewhere giving some bucks to Google.
For example Safari is free because you don’t have to pay for it; but you have to pay for OSX (not anymore if you’re on Windows) and then you’ll maybe use Google to perform your search and so give money to Apple instead of the MoFo, if you were using Firefox previously.
Yes everything is free, like the people how are organizing free online lotteries just to sell your contact informations afterwards. Yes, and they make a living out of this. Nothing is free, no even the time I spending here writing this ;-) Because, someone will read it, maybe and click through the link above to see who’s that little jerk.
Seeing it as something free is being half-blind imho.
“To understand the concept, you should think of free as in free speech, not as in free beer.” — http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Nice week-end,
October 4th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Yep, we agree: free doesn’t mean I’m not creating value for these guys (how would they make billions otherwise?)
My question: qhat if what they make is not enough and they decide to make us pay, how much would you pay? I’m interested in knowing if you think it’s 1) possible to switch away from google 2) if you would do it 3) or if you would rather pay a monthly fee to avoid that pain.
Yoan? Floris? How much ;) ?
October 5th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
$50-$100 a month? Well, it’s worth that much to me, yes. But I would have paid something like several hundred dollars for a seat license for the equivalent professional/effectiveness level of software in “the old days” (early 90s) — I’m thinking of how I paid $500-800 a piece for QuarkXPress, Photoshop, and Freehand, and $25-$100 a pop for top-quality fonts. But those were one-time payments, and amortizable (at least mentally). Upgrade cycles were about 2 years.
If Google Apps are the “usefulness equivalent” to me now as QXP+PS were in my early graphic design days, then the price you suggest is right on.
But my mentality has changed since then. I pay to upgrade key programs much less often (in the management side of life, most applications I use are Apple’s).
If I were asked to pay for Google services, then I’d also be shopping around a bit. Today, using Google is the “easy” solution. Their stuff usually works, and “everybody does it”, so even the aspects that should cause me to reconsider, I don’t (how much of my personal life do they know about?!). Once Google were subscription-only, I’d be comparing functionality and support and features and ease of use with other options. I might even choose a more expensive option that worked better for me. So trying to set my brain back to the 1990s might backfire on Google.
What I’m willing to pay monthly for now is data service — phone lines, internet service, cell phone service.
In the U.S., $99 flat-rate domestic all-you-can-eat voice+data is the new trend for mobile. If that included my phone’s Google Apps… or even if I paid an extra $20/month… then I’d be on. So there’s a place the subscription could work for me. Especially if there were added benefit/convenience/UI integration (a la Android) to having Google on board.
October 6th, 2008 at 9:34 am
I think that Google would lose the game if they would start asking money. People will look for a free solution. Adwords etc. brings in enough for Google, we don’t have a problem with that because it seems we are just making money and Google gets a share.