People Don't Want To Pay For Mobile Content
Despite uncertain consumer interest in mobile TV, operators are convinced that it will provide a big boost to that ever-important metric, ARPU. Even early efforts are showing that people won’t watch just anything because it’s on a phone, but a new survey says that people are reluctant to pay for multimedia mobile content as well. There’s an unflagging belief in the mobile industry, particularly from operators, that end-user subscription fees and service charges are the only way to monetize content. But generally, free is better for the consumer — and developing advertising-supported mobile content could better for the operators, too, since the size of the audience (and the following revenues) are no longer dependent on convincing users to give up their own cash.
