Imagine a bulls eye five feet across and you win if you hit the target in that big round red center. No problem from a few feet– you score easily. The larger the target, the closer you are, the easier the score. Now we could make it tougher if you were to stand back a few feet and then a few more and so on and so forth. But we could make it impossible if we took away the target.
Completing an online study is like shooting darts without a target. Think about it: what is our target? Oh I remember now, in the recesses of our brain it is the census. But we all know that doesn’t cut it anymore. The online community does a reasonably poor job of representing the offline community. I better not throw that comment into a crowded bar filled with market researchers. So let me recant it for a little while, a very little while.