The Freemium Model's Reciprocation Effect

I don’t think industry-wide stats bear this out, and they may actually support the opposite conclusion: people mostly upgrade only when absolutely required to.

Dropbox’s conversion rate is 2-4% (depending on what minimum level of activity one uses for the denominator). The difference between theirs and Spotify’s is that with Spotify, all free users hear in-stream ads. With Dropbox, some % of users are satisfied-enough with the free product.

Dropbox is both more representative of typical consumer conversion rates (1-3%) and more representative of the knobs that a freemium business has. In both cases, the conclusion isn’t that people upgrade due to perceived goodwill, it’s that Spotify - and any business which people listen to constantly - has an unusually effective way to motivate users.