Consumers Have No Idea How Much They Would Buy of a Product That Isn't Available

Steve Jobs famously maintained that one could not predict consumer demand for a product they never had seen, which is one reason why Jobs never put stock in consumer research.

Likewise, one might argue, all present estimates of the amount of video subscription service “avoided” by consumers is nearly meaningless for predicting consumer behavior in some future market.

The reason is simply that It is difficult to measure demand for  a product that is not available yet.

A November 2013 survey by Verizon Digital Media Services found significant consumption of non-linear video by Millennials, something that likely is surprising to nobody.

source: eMarketer

The survey found 13 percent of Millennials making do without any linear TV service, while some nine percent of other people did so.

But the important questions of whether consumers will pay for some future form of on-demand video, and how much, cannot be determined on the basis of present consumption, since the content many would pay for is simply not available.

But there are other issues as well. At present, one reason many Millennials do not buy linear TV services is actual lack of interest in the value proposition. Some simply do not believe they need to have access.

Others might do so if the value-price relationship were different. In fact, if the price-value relationship changes, it is possible that behavior could shift significantly.