The psychology of digital media audiences—willingness to pay

The Psychology of Free by Anderson (2009) gave an interesting perspective on free subscription. I had subconsciously thought about this but never in such ways as the penny gap and the cost of zero cost. It makes logical sense to think that a source that has always been free remain unaffected if it continues to remain free to consumers. However,  that paid content is devalued and discredited when it becomes free also makes logical sense. Some equate money with more credibility, higher quality, more information, etc. However, if the same content becomes available for free, its consumers may question whether or not it will have the same amount of credibility, quality and information as it did previously when it was paid. This made perfect sense to me. However, this paper was published in 2009. I wonder if this will still be true today in 2015.

In 2015, I believe Dan Ariely's version of "free" is true as was described in Predictably Irrational. He says "zero is an emotional hot button - a source of irrational excitement." Free does not speak to price/quality as it did previously but rather removes risk and we "forget about the downside." In this case, I think the penny gap works to rationalize consumers preference for free things over paid. Now, we see more free content change from free to paid which is disgruntling to a lot of consumers. Some consumers only look for free content and disregard any paid source because the quality of information is thought to be similar if not the same. Paid content is often called a premium now: the free version gives you everything you need but paid accounts give you more options. Therefore, finding anything for free is exciting and preferred.