Also, all the different MP3 stores really make my head spin. Why cant we all just buy music and video from iTunes? Give me a break. I bet walking down the cereal isle at the grocery store is a nightmare for Marco.
Well, I hate to quibble, and I mostly agree with what you're saying, but if you remember back to the last time that Apple had to negotiate it's contracts with Universal, Warner, Sony BMG, etc, the music studios weren't exactly trying to negotiate the iTunes music store's prices down. In fact, they were asking for a lot of fairly consumer-unfriendly stuff, like the option to jack-up the price of singles in the first few weeks of release, and more album 'bonus tracks' (ie less a-la-carte song pricing).
In fact, it's Universal et. al. that own the rights to all this music. Do they really have to sell any of it in the iTunes music store? Would they have to sell any of it in the iTunes music store if the retail online market for music was split evenly between a multiplicity of mp3 stores? Why don't they tell Apple to take their $1.25 price point and shove it? The answer to that question is the key to understanding the digital music market.
Well, I hate to quibble, and I mostly agree with what you're saying, but if you remember back to the last time that Apple had to negotiate it's contracts with Universal, Warner, Sony BMG, etc, the music studios weren't exactly trying to negotiate the iTunes music store's prices down. In fact, they were asking for a lot of fairly consumer-unfriendly stuff, like the option to jack-up the price of singles in the first few weeks of release, and more album 'bonus tracks' (ie less a-la-carte song pricing).
In fact, it's Universal et. al. that own the rights to all this music. Do they really have to sell any of it in the iTunes music store? Would they have to sell any of it in the iTunes music store if the retail online market for music was split evenly between a multiplicity of mp3 stores? Why don't they tell Apple to take their $1.25 price point and shove it? The answer to that question is the key to understanding the digital music market.