Pay What You Want ...

This afternoon I'm going to do some on-air pitching for Hawaii Public Radio. They have an interesting business model. They provide the service at no charge and then ask people to make a voluntary payment. It's interesting and unusual, but it turns out that this model is not unique. Recently a restaurant implemented a "pay what you want" scheme. They were confident enough in their product quality that they were willing to try this. While they had some "cheap charlies" and deadbeats, in general they found that people were paying expected menu prices ... or, surprisingly, some were paying a premium. Which goes to show that when you provide real value, customers are generally willing to pay for it.

On the other hand, companies that provide lousy value get complaints about prices. Once again, airlines are a good example of a business built on cutting corners and squeezing value.