‘Generation Free’

I came across the term ‘Generation Free’ last week in an article on Wallblog, where it explained how there is an increasing amount of consumers who are not willing to pay for products and services. Why? Because they’ve been brought up in a time where most things are already fast, free and sufficient.

 

For most of us, we can remember the days when mobile phones didn’t exist, let alone smartphones. The same goes for watching movies; we needed VCRs and not just an internet connection. So we see these technological advances as added benefits – we can appreciate the importance and their added value. Whereas Generation Free, all those born into a time where these benefits have already been put in place, are constantly expecting the same standards i.e. free. The makers of Championship Manager stated that the game had been downloaded and played illegally 10.8 million times globally in 2013! [Source: Wallblog] These technological advances have become, to a certain extent, undervalued by Generation Free as they haven’t experienced anything different.

 

Similarly, we’ve all come to expect things to be fast and easy. If it’s not, we probably won’t go ahead with it. An example of this can be said for signing up to websites. There aren’t many of us who enjoy filling out long registration forms. I’m sure you’ve all come across the option to sign up to a website by signing in to one of your social media accounts. Facebook being the obvious choice; it powered 45% of social logins in Q3 of 2013. [Source: Statista]

 

Although Generation Free only account for a relatively small segment of the population at the moment, they will continue to grow year by year and we will start to become more like-minded (as shown by the need of use of social logins). This just might be something we should all keep our eye on.