65% Of iNet Users Have Paid For Online Content

Music and software are most common

Nearly two-thirds of internet users – 65% – have paid to download or access some kind of online content from the internet, ranging from music to games to news articles, aoccrding to a study by the Pew Internet and Life Study Project. 

Music, software, and apps are the most popular content that internet users have paid to access or download, although the range of paid online content is quite varied and widespread.

In a survey of 755 internet users between 28 October and 1 November 2010, respondents were asked about 15 different kinds of online material that could be purchased or access after a payment.  The online content that we were trying to assess in this survey is “intangible” digital products such as software, articles, and music that need not have a physical form. This is in contrast to something we have measured in previous surveys but were not trying to capture here: the use of the internet to purchase “tangible” products such as clothes, CDs, books, or computers or tangible services such as hotel reservations or airline tickets.

In this survey we asked the following question: “Please tell me if you have ever paid to access or to download any of the following types of online content?” And the study found:

33% of internet users have paid for digital music online
33% have paid for software
21% have paid for apps for their cell phones or tablet computers
19% have paid for digital games
18% have paid for digital newspaper, magazine, or journal articles or reports
16% have paid for videos, movies, or TV shows
15% have paid for ringtones
12% have paid for digital photos
11% have paid for members-only premium content from a website that has other free material on it
10% have paid for e-books
7% have paid for podcasts
5% have paid for tools or materials to use in video or computer games
5% have paid for “cheats or codes” to help them in video games
5% have paid to access particular websites such as online dating sites or services
2% have paid for adult content

And 6% of internet users said they had paid for another kind of content that had not been mentioned in the list of 15 we offered.

Read full report here.