Economist Tyler Cowen had this post about the possibility of the rumored Google cell phone being advertising-supported.
Cowen asked his regular readers to comment on whether or not they’d use a cell phone and/or service provider that was offered for free in return for listening to ads every time they make or receive a call. The comments so far mostly indicate that those commenters would be willing to listen to ads in return for free service, but that’s sort of contrary to what industry analysts believe.
Personally, I think that it’s likely to meet with mixed success. There will be a lot of interest from people who are generally shut out of the traditional cell phone market, but a lot of those potential users have some downside attached to them if you’re Google — skips, bad credit, low income — and those users are also not likely to be attractive to some advertisers. Initially, there’ll be a lot of more attractive users — the early-adopter geek and business crowd — but they’re the group mostly likely to be put off most easily by intrusive advertising.
Would you use a cell phone service for free in return for listening to ads? I actually think I would, as long as emergency calls weren’t involved. I wouldn’t need or want some high-end iPhone clone like Google is working on, though.
