Because I Can

Bryan Caplan is a proud subscriber to satellite radio, and has a few things to say about the merger. My intentions are not to talk about the public choice and benefits for consumers, though; rather I want to talk about why nobody wants to waste their money on that crap.

Caplan states in his post, in the parentheses:

I pre-paid XM for five years, and I get nervous every time I poll my undergrads and find that none of them subscribe.

Now why could this be? Actually, there are about a billion reasons for this, but here are the easiest ones.

1. Undergraduate college students gain more utility from normal radio stations than Caplan. A large part of this has to do with Caplan's taste for classical music, which is not popular among younger people, generally.
   
   
2. Undergraduate college students have lower levels of income, so the trade-off is much higher than it is for Caplan. This kinda goes with #1, but still.
   
   
3. Nobody listens to radio by itself. The radio is something that people listen to while multitasking, rather than just sitting there and listening. It's one thing to listen to the radio at work, but who watches ESPN while they're on the job? People listen to morning radio more than anything, because that's what wakes them up on their clock radios, it's what they listen to in their cars, etc, and a huge part of that is the news and traffic reports.
   
   
4. There is nothing special about listening to the radio at all. Back when the radio aired dramas, etc just like television shows, everyone gathered around and listened. At the time, there were three TV channels. But most of what is on the radio is music or talk shows. Of that music, very little of it is live or exclusive; rather, most of it is readily available for purchase at your local record store, or on iTunes, or you can download it legally, or illegally. Radio is basically what life would be like if all TV channels were like TBS (without the Braves games) and TV-Land. While it provides a variety, this can be overcome by getting an iPod and finding some way to hook it up to your car. Or in your office.
   
   Even the sports content on satellite radio isn't that special. You can sit at your computer and get it just as easily.

But that's my take on the whole thing. Even if I had the money for such a thing, I'd prefer the one-time fixed-cost iPod to the variable cost satellite radio.

Labels: Economic Stuff, Other News Items