p2pnet - rss feed: Apple’s iTunes pricing
p2p news / p2pnet: “Jon,” writes Steve Stamps in an email. “I recently read your commentary here.”
The item Stamps is referring to discusses, among other things, what may happen if Apple boosts its iTunes prices.
But, “The wording in your article concerns me a bit,” says his email. “Though I admit Apple makes money on each song that’s downloaded, it’s widely acknowledged that Apple’s piece of the pie is quite small. Apple’s interest in the iTunes music store is the $400 jukebox that kids are willing to beg, borrow, and steal to get. The driving force behind the coming price hikes is not Apple, Steve Jobs, or the artists. It’s the record labels.
“You put it best when you said: ‘The labels have been ripping off their customers for decades.’
“Indeed they have. When Apple introduced the concept, the labels really didn’t think it would go far. Now that they see the marketshare Apple has achieved, they’ve become greedy. These price hikes are their reaction to the success of the iTunes model.
“I think your article throws blame in the wrong direction. Apple is thrilled with the name recognition, the iPod sales, and the resulting CPU sales they’ve seen from the iTunes music store success. I’m sure they’d rather reduce prices of online music to entice more iPod sales.
“Let’s give credit where credit is due. The record label executives’ bonuses depend on overall revenue. They’re the locomotive pulling and pushing this train toward higher music download costs.
“And no… I’m not a mac enthusiast. This is being typed on a Compaq Presario. I don’t own an iPod and I’ve yet to purchase any music on the iTunes store.
“It is no love of the ‘Great and Powerful Oz’ - er, I mean Steve Jobs - that prompted this email. It’s the powerful loathing I feel for the major record labels.”
Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local political representatives. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance.
November 24th, 2005 at 1:17 am
if Apple has to raise their prices so will everyone else…this is not an Apple problem as so many articles like this one seem to want to indicate. It is an industry problem. Apple leads the industry because of the quality of the product & building a system that all the others are trying to emulate. Why aren’t we having this same discussion about MS ruining the internet & slowing down the evolution of technology. I’m convinced that for a lot of people if the MS or Sony name were on Apple products we wouldn’t be hearing any of this nonsense.
November 24th, 2005 at 4:34 am
Too much for Too little!!!!