consumer responsibility

wanted to share a response I gave at Now in Colour. Andy talks about the choice consumers have to pay what they want for the new Radiohead album and asks: if you decide to be tight, are you cheating the musicians, or yourself?

• Great post! I love that I don't have an answer. I think this topic comes at a good time in the history of consumer-honesty (with themselves). It's sort of like Planning for Good on Facebook (more here) or All Day Buffet. People want to do the right thing; they'd like to imagine they have good intentions; at the end of the day, they want to be happy and feel good.

• Planning has a huge role to play here (I think). If we can properly identify what consumers' needs really are, then we're one step closer to making them feel good and happy about themselves and their purchases.

• When I saw the Radiohead news a while back, I thought Cool! But I think I thought cool, only because it's so unique. Go Radiohead! If we give consumers the responsibility to think for themselves before they're ready to, then we might be opening a huge can of worms. People love to place blame and find fault (is it really human nature?) and this kind of free-for-all sounds like it might have loopholes. Who knows. I don't.

• Anyway, still don't have an answer. I really liked your thinking process. So keep it up!