Oh yeah!

[ginny_t]

I meant to rant about the iTunes music store's new pricing.

So let's work this out: the more popular songs will be more expensive. What? Supply is infinite, so there's no supply and demand justification for this. They're not harder to make, so nope. They'll actually sell more, so they ought to cost less, and everyone comes out ahead. Right?

Right?

Do they think we're stupid?

Comments

[gruberman.livejournal.com]

Back when they changed the pricing scheme, I read somewhere that 3-tiered pricing was a requirement of some of the labels before they'd allow Apple to drop the DRM on the songs. Although I can't remember if that was real or just fanboy/girl defense of Apple.

Anyway I think economics will work nicely in this case. If people don't think the popular music is worth the price they're selling it for, people won't buy the songs and they'll have to lower the prices. If people are willing to pay then I suppose it is a perfectly reasonable price after all.

[ginny-t.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've heard that, too. I still don't care. It's fucked up.

If it is truly the "more popular songs" (whatever that's supposed to mean), then it probably won't affect me because I'm not into the big hits. How do they even choose the "more popular songs"? Will a song come out at $1.29 and then drop to 99¢ as its popularity wanes? What about those people who paid 30¢ more? They pay for immediacy? What if a song starts out at a lower price point but becomes a hit? Then they jack it up? It's just screwy accounting, and I call shenanigans.

[gruberman.livejournal.com]

I think the difference on this between you and me is my complete inability to get worked up over the price of music :P

If I think a song is too expensive I'll just shrug and not buy it. I pass over lots of songs that I might pay $0.30 or $0.50 for but balk at $0.99.

I don't see why one arbitrary price scheme is more wrath-worthy than another.

[ginny-t.livejournal.com]

It's not really wrath, but this is an example of how consumers are treated poorly by providers. Also, I think the music industry still hasn't grokked the fact that the days of making a bajillion dollars are over. Really, all the royalties-based industries (music, books, movies) are going to be forced to make themselves over now that the new Internet has changed so much.

Short version: greed makes me cranky.

[fpelayo.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's demand for all the pwwweshus bandwidth traffic they're projecting for a hit song? ^^;

(ya, I'm grasping cuz I'm not an iTunes/PMP user :P)

Meh, I guess I'm too used to the idea of "charge what the market's WILLING to bear" to let this surprise me. I can just imagine all the teenie boppers bugging their parents to download the latest Jonas Bros. hit, and the folks mentally attuned to thinking that a buck and change is nothing to sweat about. Sellers love buyer apathy.

[jonofthewired.livejournal.com]

I don't think the pricing model is out of line. There is scarcity, but as for all information, the scarcity is derived from the monopoly on distribution granted by copyright law. This is the way it's always been for recorded music; iTunes simply makes it more obvious by doing aways with the physical token of your purchase.

Without the distribution monopoly (or when the distribution monopoly is circumvented, i.e. file sharing) you're right, the marginal cost of a song in a digital format is essentially nothing. Thus, supply is infinite and the only possible price is $0. However, with the monopoly in place supply and demand become meaningless. There's only one vendor, so they're free to choose whatever price they think will make them the most money. If the record labels somehow determined that they could make the most money by selling a track for $10 million, then as publicly held corporations that's pretty much what they would have to do.

It may suck for us if they choose to raise their prices, but there's no price they could choose (except for free) that would be more or less arbitrary than any other.

[ginny-t.livejournal.com]

However, there isn't really the distribution monopoly; there's only the illusion of it and the record companies clinging to that illusion.

The gist of my rant is that this pricing scheme more than the price chosen is what makes me less likely to buy from the iTMS in spite of the removal of DRM.

It's not really true that the cost is $0; it's like pharmaceuticals where the first costs a bajillion dollars, but subsequent ones are mere pennies. It does cost money to make and record music, and I have no problem paying that and a reasonable amount more to make it worthwhile for the artists and infrastructure to continue. The record company infrastructure is not changing as quickly as the market, so I'm still not on board.

Yes, the star machine is more expensive than many other musicians, and it's the star machine music that'll be the higher price, but I stopped supporting the star machine long ago. All flash and no substance? No thanks.

I admit that I'm in the minority, and sales will continue and possibly pick up. I'm still not convinced.

[squid-pants.livejournal.com]

"Do they think we're stupid?"
I own Apple shares precisely because I think they think the general public are stupid and they know how to market to that so well.
This does not mean I think everyone who buys an Apple product is stupid. I think people of all types buy Apple stuff.
I just think the stupid people constantly replace hardware because a newer version comes out. I think the stupid consumer thinks a higher price tag means something is better and I also think stupid people are into conspicuous consumerism. That would include paying more for the song everyone has.
I admit I own absolutely no Apple branded hardware at this point. My MP3 player is from Sony of Japan, which I bought on my first visit to Akihabara years ago. My desktop I built myself, and I rebuild it nearly perpetually. My laptop, interestingly enough, is from the same factory that makes some models of MacBooks. It has the exact same hardware, but a different branded case, so I paid a fraction of what it would have cost if it had been branded Apple.
Apple has many consumers, but what makes them the most money are the ones who need to be SEEN buying and using Apple. They like paying more because they see it as evidence of their means.

[ginny-t.livejournal.com]

Is there as much visibility in the iTMS?

Aside from that, I agree with what you're saying.

Also, anyone who says "iScrewed" around me will get a healthy helping of ginny!rage and scorn.

[squid-pants.livejournal.com]

Being a tree hugging sort, I ride a bike or take the TTC everywhere. There is an obvious effort to make sure I hear what everyone is listening to on their personal devices. After all, they had to pay money to get the music on their device.
Cell phones are the worst, people play music through the speaker all the time instead of at least using headphones so only those within a 3 metre radius have no choice but to hear. I digress into a different rant though. When forced into close confines with a captive audience, their musical selections are forced upon me.
Someone else mentioned another economic reality above I think. You can charge more when there is a sense of urgency. If it's popular NOW, there is a human urge to show conformity to the group NOW. Movie studios know this too, they collect up to 90% of the box office returns in the first few weeks of a movies release. Only after time has passed (and attendances have dropped massively) do the theaters get to keep a sizable portion of box returns. Supply is infinite of digital information, but bandwidth is limited. You control the bottleneck, you can set your price. Those willing to pay the most NOW will pay the most, those who are patient will pay less.
I actually still buy CDs (when possible I like to buy CDs off the bands themselves at live shows, so I know they get the most money in their pockets) and rip them myself, so take what I say with that in mind.

[ginny-t.livejournal.com]

Okay, so those cell phones broadcasting to everyone around would tick me off. *grumble*

You make a good point about immediacy. Stupid sheeple.

(I'm ... amused, I guess, that you're a treehugging sort and you buy CDs. I'm too conscious of the embedded energy [and landfill legacy] in those pieces of plastic to prefer them over digital files. [I admit I do have some "recently" purchased CDs, but those were directly from the artists at shows and often have signatures on them.] It certainly doesn't help that I'm on a decluttering kick and very aware of everything that I bring into my home.)

Wow, on the subject of digressing. ^_~

[squid-pants.livejournal.com]

It's a hard call, isn't it. The e-waste legacy of Apple's iTunes server farms is enormous. The energy consumption is huge, and ongoing too. Their servers are constantly upgraded, new HDs are added by the thousand per day, all that power, all that waste, (think about where some of the materials, like the coltan used to acquire tantalum are coming from to make all those computer parts. Mined in the Congo, with the profits going to fund the civil war there. Huge environmental and human costs) ongoing. Remember, those server farms consume vast amounts of power in air conditioning use too.
I honestly don't know what the bigger cost is. I'm as big a hypocrite as anyone else out there really, but I think the physical CD _might_ be the lesser evil.
/rant :)

[ginny-t.livejournal.com]

The more you try to do good, the more you realise how hard it is. Eventually, you have to make the choice that causes you the least stress to live with. :/ (I most definitely wasn't accusing you of hypocrisy; I hope you didn't think I was. In fact, you've demonstrated that you know more and have thought harder about this issue than I have.)

Stupid complicated world.

[squid-pants.livejournal.com]

Oh my no! Not my intention to imply you called me anything. :)
No, it's just my philosophy to learn as much as you can about what one's true footprint is, including ongoing costs due to one's actions and possessions.
You can't live and not have a footprint, you can just keep making changes until your footprint has hit sustainable size :)

When I'm not depressed about it I prefer to think of it as a challenging world.