Toward sustainable digital goods

Abstract

Digital goods refer to goods that have digital forms and require physical devices to be consumed. In the past decades, different types of products have been produced in digital forms including books, music, films and newspapers. Although many goods are produced in the digital forms, users are not accustomed to pay for intangible digital goods. Digital goods providers are relying on a small number of paying users and it causes sustainability problem. In this thesis, to solve the sustainability problem, user purchase intention for digital goods is examined with two studies: the cases of Freemium software and E-books. From the results of two studies, strategies for enhancing sustainability of digital goods providers are proposed.