Amazon one-ups iTunes Plus with MP3 store, exclusive music - Page 3

What surprises me is that Jobs had promised that we would see at LEAST half of iTunes tracks being sold DRM-free by the end of the year, with no further word, so what is happining?. While that can happen, it astonishes me that all of the tracks that are being sold elsewhere, DRM-free, other than this new Universal initive, aren't already being sold DRM-free on iTunes. That just seems strange.

I thought that all of those indie labels would jump on right away. That hasn't happened.

I thought it was a projection, not a promise, with weasel words like "We believe" "we hope", etc., but that is pretty curious.

I don't think that Apple will hurt much if sales of iTunes tank. Most evey one agrees that Apple doesn't make much on iTunes sales. And in the past even Apple has stated/implied iTunes is there to sell iPods. Amazon, rightly decided, to make there download service compatible with iPods. If anything, this may increase iPod lust.

I say Kudos to Amazon. This may in the future be seen as a watershed mark in the sale of digital music along the lines of Apple's introduction of iTunes on Windows.

I don't remember those words.

Nevertheless, we should have seen much more than EPI by now.

What's the name of that site here that legally sells no DRM MPG's? All of those should have already been on iTunes.

It would be a public relations nightmare though.

They make $.33/song. They've sold 3 Billion songs. That's 1 Billion dollars (probably $100 million to run the store, so $900M Net).

How many TV shows, I wonder? And how much do they make off each?


Given the above... no. The record companies wanted variable pricing which is USUALLY beneficial to the consumer.

They know these songs are offered on other services for less.

Luckily, their stubbornness has lead to companies selling mp3s, which is too awesome for words.


'incentivized ' is not a word.

Moreover, no.

NBC is releasing its shows FOR FREE. Apple could very well have been lying about them wanting to double show prices. In fact, I bet NBC just wanted to raise prices on recent shows and lower prices on older shows. This would mess around with Apple's profit margins and they probably wouldn't make as much on recent shows as older ones.

Apple's not automatically the good guy. The content providers get to decide how their stuff is distributed. UMG and NBC have decided that they could make more money distributing through other channels. Apple decided that their demands would reduce profits by too much.

If Apple allows UMG and NBC to budge their prices, pretty soon the smaller providers will try the same.

It's all about money, and Apple makes PLENTY.

You are confusing what Apple gets (not 33 cents, but 30 cents) per song, and how much is profit, which is estimated to be 5 cents, or less. The rest is used to pay for running the service, R&D, taxes, etc.


Apple has sold something over 95 million Tv shows, according to Apple. At $1.99 a show, and less per show for seasons purchases, the extimate is that they make about 10 cents profit per show, or a whopping $9.5 million in profit so far. Wow!


Since your facts above are wrong, so are your conclusions based on them. Right now, the content companies, or at least one of them are in a war with Apple. We don't know what the end results would be if they won. But, do you assume they want to lower prices, and thus, lower their profits?


They don't know their songs are selling for less on other sites, they negotiated those prices. They weren't standing on the sidelines watching it happen.

This is a very deliberate attempt to break Apple by undercutting their prices, with the intent of taking enough sales from them that they will feel as though they have no choice but to give in to some of the content companies demands.

It might work, and it might not.

But, you have no idea what might happen if it does work.


Again, this is all to reduce Apple's power over pricing.

Are you really naive enough to believe that if the content companies win this, they will continue to keep prices low?

That would be a joke on consumers like you.

It's not even vaguely possible that Universal is fighting to have lower prices. Do you think that Apple would resist lower pricing?

I think that if Universal said to Apple that they wanted to lower pricing on older music, Apple would have agreed.

No, this is to enable them to set their own pricing, which is unlikely to result, in the long run, in a pricing model that keeps the average price per song the same.

If that were true, then they wouldn't have complained that prices are too low.


Actually, it is a word. Look it up.

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary:

in·cen·tiv·ize vt -ized; -iz·ing


They are releasing all of those shows with ads that can't be bypassed. If you want shows like that, fine. Most people have shown that they don't.

What they are also trying to do is to sell combinations of shows that don't go together, for more money. That's the actual plan they have announced.

As we know now, what Jobs meant when he said that they wanted Apple to sell shows at those high prices, was that this combination of desirable shows paired with undesirable shows, would bring up the price of the show you want to buy, because you will be forced into buying a show that you don't want to buy, thus paying more for that one show.

Universal (or Vivandi) said that they weren't charging more for "a" show, and technically, they are right. They didn't point out that deal they wanted Apple to go with.

WHO'S ESTIMATION?

That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. OK Maybe at FIRST it was 5 cents, but with economy of scale, that figure is utterly ridiculous.

Ok 30 cents per song. 30 minus 5 is 25, and .25 times 3 billion is 750M

Do you REALLY think it's taken $750,000,000 to run the iTunes music store?


WHO'S ESTIMATION? They already had the infrastructure in place, it was just a matter of getting the content.


You price things based on where supply meets demand.

Since newer shows are in high demand, they would PROBABLY INCREASE the price (so yes, you're right if you're saying that), just like I said. For older shows, they would probably sell for a reduced price.

UNITS SOLD x PRICE = REVENUE

Sometimes, reducing the price will increase revenue, other times increasing will.

Yes, it's given that these companies want to sell some items at a higher price, but customers can still benefit from the lower prices on less popular items.


Why are their demands necessarily going to make things worse for consumers?


Like I said before, we're more likely looking at variable pricing than at entirely higher pricing.

You're taking Apple's word on it, and there's simply no reason to.


Uh yes. they get a percentage of each sale, I don't see why that's so far fetched.


Yes, however Apple may not have agreed to cut their 30 cents/track down. You don't know the details, and again, there's no reason to believe Apple.

I can pretty much 100% guarantee you that if Apple didn't cut their 'share' on the discounted content, UMG would be PISSED.


You got me there, it wasn't in my firefox dictionary.


I didn't read that. Where is that article?

Also, Amazon isn't selling TV shows ... I thought we were mainly talking about music.