I am a member of a book club that reads books from which insights for business may be extracted. having been an active member for a full year now, one of the fascinating ideas is the degree to which the ideas that are used to run businesses are untested and sometimes completely wrong. In my view, many people who run successful businesses are also out of touch with the new ideas that are in the public domain such as Nudges, data-based experimentation and ideas such as predictive algorithms.
That said, I have just encountered an instance in which the NYT has used the idea of a Nudge in its new subscriber model for the paper. For close to two months now, the NYT has allowed readers a maximum of twenty free articles with the option of taking a subscription in order to continue to read. As a former subscriber to the early Time Select service which also tried a subscription model without success, I have been reluctant to sign up.
However, having had my access run out and found a warning, I noted that the notice suggest that I could take up an initial subscription of unlimited access for US$ 0.99, which would be followed by a subscription of US3.99 per week. One sees immediately that initial subscription is incredibly cheap and the price rises fourfold after the first month. Why? Its clear that the designers understand "Choice architecture" and the inertia that makes it unlikely that the subscription would be cancelled after the first four weeks. I would not call that genius but it shows an alertness that I find laudable.
That said, I have just encountered an instance in which the NYT has used the idea of a Nudge in its new subscriber model for the paper. For close to two months now, the NYT has allowed readers a maximum of twenty free articles with the option of taking a subscription in order to continue to read. As a former subscriber to the early Time Select service which also tried a subscription model without success, I have been reluctant to sign up.
However, having had my access run out and found a warning, I noted that the notice suggest that I could take up an initial subscription of unlimited access for US$ 0.99, which would be followed by a subscription of US3.99 per week. One sees immediately that initial subscription is incredibly cheap and the price rises fourfold after the first month. Why? Its clear that the designers understand "Choice architecture" and the inertia that makes it unlikely that the subscription would be cancelled after the first four weeks. I would not call that genius but it shows an alertness that I find laudable.
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