The problem with paying a small fee for a service is not the fee itself. It is the friction for paying for the service and the hassle that comes after the payment.
Now the credit card company knows what service I am buying; I would get endless marketing emails from the service for buying additional things; my info as a person willing to pay for such a service would get sold to other companies; my credit card info would get leaked/stolen, ...
If the whole experience was literally as simple as handing someone a $1 bill, I promise I would pay for many many internet services.
I can guarantee none of your concerns apply to the people I was talking about, particularly the privacy ones. These people would pay for their meal at a restaurant using their debit/credit card without hesitation, and they still do, and that’s arguably more likely to get your card details stolen, and the issuer knowing about your life. Those worries you’re citing never crossed their minds. They just didn’t want to pay a tiny amount of money for an “abstract” thing.
I don't disagree. I am mostly talking about my hesitations for not willing to pay small amounts of fees for bunch of internet services. I am afraid that the "cost" of paying for these services would end up being a lot more than the actual amount of money.
Incidentally, this is also the reason, as much as I would like to, for not donating to public/non-profit organizations. Anybody who has donated to a political party or an organization like ACLU would know what I am talking about...
I was just thinking about this the other day -- hotels so badly want me to book directly with them instead of using, say Booking.com.
But then to book directly and get the "guaranteed cheapest!" price, I have to sort through even more options than on an aggregator, I have to create an account, and now I'm getting spammed from ANOTHER entity I never plan to do business with again. At least with the aggregators I have one company whose privacy settings I've already dealt with.
I book with hotels directly almost all the time and never receive marketing spam just regular mail about my upcoming start. Also booking with the hotel lets me select options not available on booking sites like king vs 2 queen bed options, ADA compliant rooms and even floor options. Also if you have AAA or some other memberships, those codes can easily beat discount sites like Booking.com
> I book with hotels directly almost all the time and never receive marketing spam just regular mail about my upcoming start.
What's your secret? Even the hotel in privacy-conscious Austria I stayed with once four years ago spams me.
> booking with the hotel lets me select options not available on booking sites like king vs 2 queen bed options, ADA compliant rooms and even floor options
If their booking system works. Usually faster and more reliable to send a message on booking.com.
> if you have AAA or some other memberships, those codes can easily beat discount sites like Booking.com
Not much of a secret, but clicking the unsubscribe links in emails helps. Anything new I sign up to I'm pretty religious about it. Some new email I didn't ask for -> instant unsubscribe. Works way better than one might expect.
Very noticeable when using custom domain and emails where I might sign up to the same service several times.
> Not much of a secret, but clicking the unsubscribe links in emails helps. Anything new I sign up to I'm pretty religious about it. Some new email I didn't ask for -> instant unsubscribe. Works way better than one might expect.
I usually do that and it works for a lot of things, but small hotels are one of the things that seems to slip through. And even when it works, I still resent having to do it at all, and would rather book via a big aggregator where I've already done the unsubscribe years ago.
Yep, fair enough. You are right, funnily enough it's small businesses who are the worst with this. The big ones spam a lot if you let them, but they do tend to respect the unsubscribe.
In these cases they get a dedicated email rule and anything they send goes straight to the bin.
A lot of hotels allows you to book room without creating an account and I don't remember receiving spam from those I visited. It would only make sense for chains which have a foot in every major city.
I really don't buy that the reason is the "tracking".
It's the friction of paying for something at all. There is no free sandwich, so people don't generally expect it, on the other hand there's plenty of free software.
Now the credit card company knows what service I am buying; I would get endless marketing emails from the service for buying additional things; my info as a person willing to pay for such a service would get sold to other companies; my credit card info would get leaked/stolen, ...
If the whole experience was literally as simple as handing someone a $1 bill, I promise I would pay for many many internet services.