How many too-young-to-work online gamers are there who have parents willing to pay for their subscriptions / games / in-game purchases?
We already know that these kids who don't have enough (or any of their own) money have a computer, internet access, and the ability to purchase all of the peripherals and a game needed to play. What's making companies stop and say, "We don't think the people who made these non-working kids positioned to be our customers (e.g. they have the minimum hardware needed to play their game / products) will spend any more money on them."?
Are there more kids whose parents buy them computers and allow them to play games than there are corporations / businesses?
Do all corporations / businesses and products made for corp/bus only allow for micro-transactions or are their products a monthly/yearly subscription fee (fixed rate) or is it a one time purchase?
Are we expecting future generations to stop buying computers and games for their children? Are we expecting children to stop being born or stop growing old enough to be able to use our products?
It's a demographic that's got infinite potential and every year there is a new set of customers. And, if you get on any single customer's good side they can become loyal, paying customers when they reach an age where they are no longer price-averse.
I don't know where to start searching from for this information...
Also, what we're seeing happenning in Europe right now on immigration. Japan is a bit weird right now.
Aren’t gaming computers super-high margin?
The areas usually where margins come from are:
1. Skimping on PSU quality 2. Reduced motherboard features 3. Adding LEDs as a “value add” (why earlier this year RAM with LEDs we’re going on sale ahead of the non-LED RAM)
At least, they do for the plans I'm familiar with. I don't know what Slack's giant enterprise agreements are like, but I imagine they're still getting paid plenty per-user.
I'm often surprised the type of people who are willing to pay for Nitro on Discord just for the cross-channel and animated emoticon support. I've been in communities with college students who despite posting how they're struggling to pay the rent will still keep up their Nitro subscription. The majority won't be subscribers (like most services with a free tier) but I think some underestimate those who would be, especially when targeting a mostly gaming demographic which I think has changed over the years in terms of spending habits.
After a peek at your website, I see I'm quite a bit younger than you. I know a lot of people who do not have much money, but they still consider it worth it to spend a chunk of their limited income on Discord Nitro. In some servers I've even seen young teens (13-14) spending their allowance money on it. It would be interesting, based on your anecdote, if most Nitro subscribers are young users. It might be due to the custom emotes, which are probably more desirable to younger users than older ones.
On top of that, Discord has become the main social media platform for some people. I can't imagine using it that way myself, but I know a lot of people who are in a massive number of servers and spend much of their day on it. It's not just gaming voice chat for them, it's an entire social network. These people, who also tend to be quite young, almost always have Nitro, because it's worth paying $5-10/month for their main online platform.
Maybe the main area of concern for Discord should be whether these young users keep their subscriptions as they age.