Sharing leads to purchasing

Last night in my networking group, we got into a discussion of content rights and how companies are trying to protect themselves from unauthorized sharing (ala YouTube). Several people, including myself, made the argument that with the staggering amount of content available these days (online, radio, TV, cable, theater, video, mobile, etc) it's impossible for people to find content the old-fashioned way. We're often told about it by a friend. Given the right push, we can become serious consumers of this content but it sometimes takes a little bit of free content.

Today, I had lunch with an old friend and we were chuckling about how, sometimes, a whiff of something at a restaurant will take us back to our food service days (sometimes grossing us out). He sent me this hilariously relevant video, "Waiters Who Are Nauseated By Food."

I was almost in tears it's so funny, and at the end, I read some of the comments and found my proof of how a bit of free content can spawn a purchase.

Problem is, people aren't necessarily purchasing the content companies might want them to. The content actually has to be good and desirable. Maybe that's why many companies don't mind getting a little "free" publicity on YouTube. They know their users will spread the word, get hooked, and purchase. It's the ones with crappy content that should be worried.

By the way, remember what people said about cable back in the day? That people would never pay for television when they could get it for free. But they did pay. Then they said people wouldn't pay if there weren't any commercials. But they kept paying. People pay because cable has the best content. Ultimately, quality is all that matters.