Pew Internet report: 65% of U.S. internet users have paid for digital content

GLOBAL – WASHINGTON, USA – A new report from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project has found that nearly two-thirds of internet users in the United States have paid to download or access some kind of online content from the internet, ranging from movies to games to news articles.  Music (33%), software (33%), and apps (21%) 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.

 

Other types of paid-for content included digital games (19%); newspaper, magazine, or journal articles or reports (18%); videos, movies, or TV shows (16%); ringtones (15%); digital photos (12%); members-only premium content from a website that has other free material on it (12%);  and e-books (10%). Less than 10% reported paying for podcasts, tools/materials/cheats/codes for video or computer games, access particular websites such as online dating sites or services, adult content and other content not mentioned in the list used in the survey.

 

The survey tried to get a broad overview on this subject exploring what types of online content internet users are purchasing, how they are purchasing it, and who is doing the purchasing. The data reported come from telephone (landline and mobile phone) interviews with a nationally representative sample of 1,003 adults living in the continental United States – of whom 755 are internet users. Interviews were done in English by Princeton Data Source from October 28-November 1, 2010. The margin of sampling error for the complete set of weighted data is ±3.7 percentage points, and the margin of error on the internet sample is +/- 3.9 percentage points.


 

Other findings looked at the amounts paid for online content and the demographics of the population who for content:



-The majority of the internet users pay for subscription services (23%), versus downloading an individual file (16%), or accessing streaming content (8%).

-Men and women internet users pay for online content at similar percentages, with the exception of software, for which men are more likely than women to pay to access.

-There is a correlation between income levels and paying for online content, with the internet users who live in higher-income bracket households more likely to pay for various kinds of content than those who live in lower-income brackets.

-Of those internet users reporting a dollar amount for purchasing online content, the typical user spent $10 per monthly.