Consumption Trends

In the opinions page of nytimes.com, there was an interesting piece about the shift in consumer consumption. The idea is that the younger generation is becoming more willing to pay for media content. With the price increase of Netflix it has 60 million customers but it still has 24 million remaining. This remaining number of customers caused the writer to think of what this signified. He notes that it mirrors a trend in the younger generation in being more willing to purchase online content than what he calls the Napster or free generation. With more things such as the iTunes app store and sites with purchasable content recording great sales it has made me wonder what effect this change in consumer behavior could cause. In our analysis of national savings we saw how changes in private savings affected the economy in terms of investments. If the current generation seem to be more willing to purchase things which were once sought after for free could this eventually affect our national savings in some way. Though this increased consumption‘s effects could be minimal or its change counter balanced by some other change such as income levels the idea that this behavioral shift from free to purchasing could later be of some greater significance is interesting.