Online Music Prices Going Up?
According to this
CNN article, unnamed execs at several music companies have started
rumbling about moving up the prices for downloadable music. They claim that the
65 cents per song they are currently getting was set artificially low to
stimulate demand. Strangely, they point to the ridiculous cost of ring-tone
downloads as somehow justifying the a higher
price.
What a bunch of bastards. Assuming that this is true (and the Financial Times is a pretty good source) you can see just how damn greedy these jerks are. They don't have to manufacture any physical product. They don't have to ship anything. There is no risk in merchandise being returned unsold, damaged, or stolen. They don't even have to pay bandwidth costs. It's practically pure profit, since they already made the album. For a typical album with 10 songs, this comes out to be about $6.50 the record companies are seeing. Not bad.
I know what they are realizing, though. I know why they want to raise the prices. Because they are no longer selling albums. People have finally got the choice to purchase individual songs, and they are taking advantage of it. Most albums suck - they contain one or two songs that I'd pay for and the rest is filler that I'll probably listen to once or twice and then never again. So, people just get the one or two songs, and don't even bother with the rest. So instead of their $6.50, they get get something like a $1.30.
That is the problem here - crap tunes and the record execs know it. Instead of making better music, they want to raise the price for the stuff that people will listen to. Typical response for an industry in the toilet, though. Don't make your product better, just raise it's price to keep the status quo. This rarely works for long.
What a bunch of bastards. Assuming that this is true (and the Financial Times is a pretty good source) you can see just how damn greedy these jerks are. They don't have to manufacture any physical product. They don't have to ship anything. There is no risk in merchandise being returned unsold, damaged, or stolen. They don't even have to pay bandwidth costs. It's practically pure profit, since they already made the album. For a typical album with 10 songs, this comes out to be about $6.50 the record companies are seeing. Not bad.
I know what they are realizing, though. I know why they want to raise the prices. Because they are no longer selling albums. People have finally got the choice to purchase individual songs, and they are taking advantage of it. Most albums suck - they contain one or two songs that I'd pay for and the rest is filler that I'll probably listen to once or twice and then never again. So, people just get the one or two songs, and don't even bother with the rest. So instead of their $6.50, they get get something like a $1.30.
That is the problem here - crap tunes and the record execs know it. Instead of making better music, they want to raise the price for the stuff that people will listen to. Typical response for an industry in the toilet, though. Don't make your product better, just raise it's price to keep the status quo. This rarely works for long.
Posted: Mon - February 28, 2005 at 10:36 AM
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