Discussion of Telecommunication : Course Scholar

This assignment has multiple parts to help introduce us to the economics of media and telecommunications. 

List all of your media and telecommunications expenditures for the past 12 months in the categories below. 

When calculating your expenditures below, if there are any items someone else pays for (your parents, cost is included in your apartment rent, shared password from a friend, etc.), find out what it would cost for you to pay on your own and include that cost in the totals below.  For example, if you are on your parents cell phone plan, find out how much it would cost to get your own plan.  If cable or Netflix is included in your rent, find out how much it would normally cost.  If you get a package deal (free Pandora with your phone plan), you don’t need to find out the additional cost). 

1.  Estimate the total amount you have spent on individual content purchases in the last month and then multiply by 12 to get an annual estimate.  Include songs, albums, movies, TV, shows, video games, apps, in-app purchases, etc.–you don’t need to list all the individual titles, just the approximate total money spent over 12 months purchasing content to own.

2.  List all your CONTENT SUBSCRIPTIONS, the annual cost of each (monthly price x 12), and then the total annual cost for all  your subscriptions combined (cable TV, HBO, ESPN Plus, NFL Season Pass, Sirius XM, DirecTV, Spotify,  Apple Music, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Pandora, Apple Arcade, Xbox Game Pass, PlayStation Now, New York Times, YouTube Premium, other subscription websites, app subscriptions, etc.).

3.  List the telecommunications devices that you own and the total amount you have spent over the last 12 months on devices (consoles, phones, tablets, laptops, etc.).

4.  How much does your connectivity cost per year? (cell phone plan, Internet plan).

5.  What is the total amount you spend per year on all four of the above categories combined?

6.  What are your three biggest individual expenses per year (include dollar amounts)?

7.  If you had to cut your total budget by 30 percent, what would you cut and what would you substitute for what you have given up?

8.  Does anything surprise you?  Do you spend more or less than you thought?  If there were no electronic media, how would you spend all that money instead?  Do you think you would be better or worse off?