Security versus convenience? An experimental study of user misperceptions of wireless internet service quality

This paper demonstrates that consumers make incorrect inferences about security/convenience tradeoff. We find the evidence that consumers tend to infer unobservable security quality from observable convenience and that their inferences are not always correct. In four studies, we examine user perceptions of wireless Internet service quality, with an aim to understand consumers' irrational choice of a dominated product over a dominant option. Our results indicate that consumers make inference in security from convenience using a zero-sum heuristic and that they believe in improving security in return for losing convenience. In a choice setting, we empirically show that security perception, as well as convenience, influences consumers' product choices, contradicting the common view of existing literature that convenience is the sole driver of consumer choice. Our findings show that spontaneous and extensive education of consumers about security makes a modest impact on their inference making. ► We examine user perceptions of wireless Internet service quality. ► Consumers make inference of security from convenience, using a zero-sum heuristic. ► Consumers believe in improving security in return for losing convenience. ► Educating consumers has modest impact on their inference making.