YEah, win win. Because all I wanted for a product that takes practically zero effort to sell (download 100kb, frontcovers included?!?) is for it to rise to 15 bucks a piece. Really. Win win??!? Ahh come on. This is just begging for piracy.
Yeah, scum bastards, trying to bring prices down for us consumers, how dare they!
What are you talking about? Do you even know? Amazon is putting other retailers OUT of business. No, prices should not continue to come down on everything as fast as Amazon and Walmart can push it. Only someone under the age of perhaps 16 might think this way, before getting out into the world and realizing things have to cost money or people won't (can't) make them.
Books that cost $26 in stores, will cost half that on iBooks and Amazon. HALF. Its the same BOOK! No you can't lug it around, or ruin in with your hands, or re-sell it (only downfall of ebooks), or keep it and stare it on your shelf.
You want to pirate stuff? Go ahead. It's illegal, and it's wrong. It also doesn't matter. Every song and movie imaginable can be found illegally for free. Or you can buy it legally.
The number of people purchasing from iTunes everyday indicates what people are willing to do, even with free and easy theft at their finger tips.
Quote:
Originally Posted by andyapple
I'll buy that.
Funny though, Apple's strategy is sorta similar: they claim to be only breaking about even from iTunes and apps, they make their killing from large margins on hardware. Though I do think the iPad represents much greater value over the Kindle!
and therein lies the success of the business model.
Apple has effectively said, Amazon and iBooks will be the same, but the Kindle and iPad, are anything but. Your choice.
It is fine if you want to be a cheerleader for everyting Apple does, but don't call increased prices a 'Win'.
It IS a win, because you petulant children that call yourself "consumers" are not all important, and are not entitled to anything.
I'll never understand how little any of you appreciate anything creative in the world. Printed works of Fiction are some of the most precious contributions to society that have ever existed. You people would rather STEAL them, than pay 50% of what they have always cost, for as long as I've been purchasing books.
It's obvious that to answer people's whining over an "Apple Tablet" Jobs and Co. decided to throw a large screen iPod Touch at them. All the while creating a new stream of income in which to sell content... basically the SAME content. Now, because of this "pacifier" prices are being raised!
The iPad could have been so much more
Although, the deal with AT&T IS a great thing... why couldn't it have been done with the iPhone from the start? (Like I've always said)
Prepaid option - $30 for unlimited data and tiered pricing for minutes. *No Contracts*
Apple is using toys and games to teach us students a new user interface for a new computing platform. Once the pieces are in place (an abundance of software), Apple will introduce a Macbook Touch. It will have ports, a camera, be a stand alone product that backs itself up to time capsule, it will have a large hard drive... If they introduced it now, it wouldn't sell. But a big iPod will.
Books that cost $26 in stores, will cost half that on iBooks and Amazon. HALF. Its the same BOOK! No you can't lug it around, or ruin in with your hands, or re-sell it (only downfall of ebooks), or keep it and stare it on your shelf.
Do you even stop and read what you've written or are you just too busy being arrogant and insulting people?
You listed several reasons why eBooks SHOULD cost less than their printed counterparts:
No printing fees.
Low distributions fees (shipping and all that).
DRM so they can't be shared.
Quote:
and therein lies the success of the business model.
Apple has effectively said, Amazon and iBooks will be the same, but the Kindle and iPad, are anything but. Your choice.
Yes, it's just f__king wonderful that Apple can FORCE the prices of content higher to make their own product more attractive. That they can FORCE part of the playing field to be leveled so that the rest that was already in their favor stands out.
not really. Amazon had no power in this game. they are a storefront, not the publisher. The publisher owns the titles, has all the power in saying what stores do and don't get. Unless there was a legally binding contract that set the prices and a period of time which was not over, Amazon had only two choices, carry the titles at the publisher's price or not. They tried not. Then realized that the publisher has choices (including direct sales) and they were only hurting themselves. The smartest comment they made was that it was up to the market to decide if the publisher is right or wrong.
That said, depending on the title, you are still saving a fair chunk of change at $15 a book compared to what you pay for a physical one. So perhaps the market will go with the pricing. We shall see
Apple is using toys and games to teach us students a new user interface for a new computing platform. Once the pieces are in place (an abundance of software), Apple will introduce a Macbook Touch. It will have ports, a camera, be a stand alone product that backs itself up to time capsule, it will have a large hard drive... If they introduced it now, it wouldn't sell. But a big iPod will.
This is 100% correct. The product that all the haters really want, is coming.
Remember, the iPad was not given the "i" moniker for no reason.
Mark my words, there is "Mac" monikered product with multi-touch in the works as well. It won't cost anywhere near $500, and nor should it.
Do you even stop and read what you've written or are you just too busy being arrogant and insulting people?
You listed several reasons why eBooks SHOULD cost less than their printed counterparts:
No printing fees.
Low distributions fees (shipping and all that).
DRM so they can't be shared.
Yes, it's just f__king wonderful that Apple can FORCE the prices of content higher to make their own product more attractive. That they can FORCE part of the playing field to be leveled so that the rest that was already in their favor stands out.
Such a win for consumers...
When you're trying to criticized Apple's online content distribution prices, its very easy to ignore the fact that THEY are sole reason we have $0.69 - $1.29 songs, and $1.99 tv shows. Not to mention $4.99 movies that are not new releases.
It is just a glorified iPod Touch. And now this whole price thing. I was hesitant about buying one before, but now I am turning. It is all a game and we are just pawns. I'm getting off at the next bus stop.
Do you think that the iPad will be remembered as Apple jumping the shark?
I'll be happy to explain. Amazon was never interested in making money off the ebooks they sell. They were interested in:
1. Being the cheapest and most convenient medium.
2. Selling you an insanely over priced Kindle.
3. Selling you a hundred dollars worth of crap you didn't come to Amazon to buy, because your subconscious is sucking in the 500 products on each page that Amazon somehow knows you really want.
Amazon kind of lost sight of their business model when they started tailoring their content prices to sell Kindle. Oh they said that they won't twist their model to favor Kindle but then they went ahead and did it.
It would be wise of them to get out of the hardware business seeing as they can't maintain their discipline and are being blinded by the gazillions of $$$$ that they see Apple stockpiling. They are not and will never be a hardware company. They are risking their whole business by succumbing to the siren song of hardware profits. If the walking, talking ego bloat over at Techcrunch was able to accept that hardware is not their thing, surely Amazon, who heretofore always had its feet firmly planted on the ground, should be able to make that admission as well.
An author about Amazon's role and what their objectives were:
"From the point of view of Jeff Bezos' bank account, Amazon is the entire supply chain and should take that share of the cake that formerly went to both wholesalers and booksellers. They do this by buying wholesale and selling retail, taking up to a 70% discount from the publishers and selling for whatever they can get. Their stalking horse for this is the Kindle publishing platform; they're trying to in-source the publisher by asserting contractual terms that mean the publisher isn't merely selling them books wholesale, but is sublicencing the works to be republished via the Kindle publishing platform. Publishers sublicensing rights is SOP in the industry, but not normally handled this way -- and it allows Amazon to grab another chunk of the supply chain if they get away with it, turning the traditional publishers into vestigial editing/marketing appendages.
The agency model Apple proposed -- and that publishers like Macmillan enthusiastically endorse -- collapses the supply chain in a different direction, so it looks like: author -> publisher -> fixed-price distributor -> reader. In this model Amazon is shoved back into the box labelled 'fixed-price distributor' and get to take the retail cut only. Meanwhile: fewer supply chain links mean lower overheads and, ultimately, cheaper books without cutting into the authors or publishers profits."
THIS is why publishers are willing to buck Amazon. This was also a friction point between Apple and music companies.
"(Note that Amazon have been trying to grab a larger share of the cake by dipping into the publishers -- and the authors -- share of what meagre profits there are (book publishing is notoriously, uniquely unprofitable, within the media world), even though they've already got the wholesale and retail supply chains stitched up. Their buy wholesale/sell retail model screws publishers' ability to manage their cash flow and tends to induce price wars on the supply side, which is okay if we're talking widgets with a range of competing suppliers, but books are individually unique products and the industry already runs on alarmingly narrow margins: this isn't the music or movie biz.)"
"It's interesting to note that unlike the music industry who had to be pushed, the big publishers seem to be willing to grab a passing lifeline."
This is 100% correct. The product that all the haters really want, is coming.
Cool. But that is what we were told for years, and were disappointed last Wednesday. Maybe next time Apple will get it right?
In the meantime, it looks like we'll have our choice of fully-realized products coming soon. Lots of competent manufacturers are announcing Android tablets for the rest of us.
It will be interesting to see the Win7 touchscreen devices, but likely the interface will be a kludge, given that Win7 is designed for a keyboard and mouse. That's why I'm more interested in Android tablets.
When you're trying to criticized Apple's online content distribution prices, its very easy to ignore the fact that THEY are sole reason we have $0.69 - $1.29 songs, and $1.99 tv shows. Not to mention $4.99 movies that are not new releases.
But I guess those prices are too high for you.
Why are your guesses so often wrong?
He's not talking about "Apple's online content distribution prices". He's referring to a subset: Apple's eBook prices.
Yes, it's just f__king wonderful that Apple can FORCE the prices of content higher to make their own product more attractive. That they can FORCE part of the playing field to be leveled so that the rest that was already in their favor stands out.
Such a win for consumers...
Yes, just like the death of professional, properly reported, multi-sourced and fact-checked journalism and the rise of hack reportage of a thousand and one 'news' articles based on a single unverified source is a win as well.
What are you talking about? Do you even know? Amazon is putting other retailers OUT of business. No, prices should not continue to come down on everything as fast as Amazon and Walmart can push it. Only someone under the age of perhaps 16 might think this way, before getting out into the world and realizing things have to cost money or people won't (can't) make them.
And only someone under the age of 6 doesn't understand that this is what happens when you have a mature capitalist market, see Russell's paradox. So you are mostly complaining against the capitalistic system, boo hoo, go get yourself a revolt and communize the whole country.
Quote:
Books that cost $26 in stores, will cost half that on iBooks and Amazon. HALF. Its the same BOOK! No you can't lug it around, or ruin in with your hands, or re-sell it (only downfall of ebooks), or keep it and stare it on your shelf.
Quite a trade-off. It means that everytime I lose my iPad, bang, I lose my library. And it seems I can't lend or borrow. And it seems I can't decorate my wall. No, if it's just bytes, it's lame. If one pirates this stuff, at least they do with it everything they want to. I mean, this is the same shit that we've been through in the music debacle!
Quote:
You want to pirate stuff? Go ahead. It's illegal, and it's wrong. It also doesn't matter. Every song and movie imaginable can be found illegally for free. Or you can buy it legally.
It's illegal, not wrong. I am not interested in pirating. I was more interested in having a good retailing experience, an ease of access to good books with "just works" polish in it. I like that, I'm willing to buy that kind of experience. I am not willing to bend over for it though.
Quote:
The number of people purchasing from iTunes everyday indicates what people are willing to do, even with free and easy theft at their finger tips.
iTunes doesn't place "physical" musics against "byte" musics: either DVD or CDs, they are all bytes. A book is physical, and I don't need to charge it. I don't need a fancy software to turn the page (and go woooow because it looks so much as the real thing).
Worse, books are measly 100kb.
Quote:
and therein lies the success of the business model.
Music costs 1 buck. Success. Movies? Where is the success of movies in iTunes? Haven't seen it.
Quote:
Apple has effectively said, Amazon and iBooks will be the same, but the Kindle and iPad, are anything but. Your choice.
Oh ok, sure about that. That's why Amazon ducked. Doesn't mean we should applaud the bucks raise.
Are you a Stalinist? Capitalism, when it works properly, results in in low prices for consumers. That has been known since the time of Adam Smith.
Here, a duopoly situation exists, and fanbois are falling all over themselves to convince themselves that it is a Good Thing.
I say bring on the competition.
Capitalism means that consumers should get to pay the lowest price possible?!!? Since when.
Capitalism wasn't meant for the consumer... it was meant for the manufacturer and the supply chain.
If someone along the supply chain is messing up the price structure by undercutting everyone with lowball prices then something, somewhere has to give. We see it happen all of the time. Walmart's effect on the retail market is a good example. In the beginning it always looks like the consumer is winning. In the end, though, it becomes obvious that the damage caused by lowball pricing is a very bad to the overall marketplace.
Apple saw this crack in the foundation and decided to take advantage of it. Unfortunately, once you give the consumer something it's very hard to take it away so only time will tell if this strategy will work.
E-books are going to be the new piracy target, especially when it blows up. Publishers are trying to milk the most money they can out of consumers by setting prices artificially high to pad their bottom line.
Id love to see how much they are going to charge for school textbooks, cause i'll take free if it isnt reasonably priced and im sure the younger generations will as well.
A lot of people have been talking about the huge savings in textbooks by going to an iPad/e-book model. This is great evidence that textbooks will only be as cheap as the publishers want them to be, and they'll only work on the e-reader of choice for as long as they want it to. I'm all for eliminating paper based books (just not an industry that can stand to exponentially grow over the next few decades), but anyone who thinks that books will be cheaper under the iPad/e-reader model is fooling themselves. You won't be able to buy used textbooks, you won't be able to sell your textbooks, you won't be able to give a textbook to a friend or younger sibling. Piracy will be rampant (as piracy is among the young who don't have a lot of money), and those of us who try and go the legitimate route will be paying for it.
Comments
LOL Amazon is run from Cupertino.
Win.
It is fine if you want to be a cheerleader for everyting Apple does, but don't call increased prices a 'Win'.
YEah, win win. Because all I wanted for a product that takes practically zero effort to sell (download 100kb, frontcovers included?!?) is for it to rise to 15 bucks a piece. Really. Win win??!? Ahh come on. This is just begging for piracy.
Yeah, scum bastards, trying to bring prices down for us consumers, how dare they!
What are you talking about? Do you even know? Amazon is putting other retailers OUT of business. No, prices should not continue to come down on everything as fast as Amazon and Walmart can push it. Only someone under the age of perhaps 16 might think this way, before getting out into the world and realizing things have to cost money or people won't (can't) make them.
Books that cost $26 in stores, will cost half that on iBooks and Amazon. HALF. Its the same BOOK! No you can't lug it around, or ruin in with your hands, or re-sell it (only downfall of ebooks), or keep it and stare it on your shelf.
You want to pirate stuff? Go ahead. It's illegal, and it's wrong. It also doesn't matter. Every song and movie imaginable can be found illegally for free. Or you can buy it legally.
The number of people purchasing from iTunes everyday indicates what people are willing to do, even with free and easy theft at their finger tips.
I'll buy that.
Funny though, Apple's strategy is sorta similar: they claim to be only breaking about even from iTunes and apps, they make their killing from large margins on hardware. Though I do think the iPad represents much greater value over the Kindle!
and therein lies the success of the business model.
Apple has effectively said, Amazon and iBooks will be the same, but the Kindle and iPad, are anything but. Your choice.
It is fine if you want to be a cheerleader for everyting Apple does, but don't call increased prices a 'Win'.
It IS a win, because you petulant children that call yourself "consumers" are not all important, and are not entitled to anything.
I'll never understand how little any of you appreciate anything creative in the world. Printed works of Fiction are some of the most precious contributions to society that have ever existed. You people would rather STEAL them, than pay 50% of what they have always cost, for as long as I've been purchasing books.
unreal.
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
I love Apple, but this iPad is a scam..
It's obvious that to answer people's whining over an "Apple Tablet" Jobs and Co. decided to throw a large screen iPod Touch at them. All the while creating a new stream of income in which to sell content... basically the SAME content. Now, because of this "pacifier" prices are being raised!
The iPad could have been so much more
Although, the deal with AT&T IS a great thing... why couldn't it have been done with the iPhone from the start? (Like I've always said)
Prepaid option - $30 for unlimited data and tiered pricing for minutes. *No Contracts*
Apple is using toys and games to teach us students a new user interface for a new computing platform. Once the pieces are in place (an abundance of software), Apple will introduce a Macbook Touch. It will have ports, a camera, be a stand alone product that backs itself up to time capsule, it will have a large hard drive... If they introduced it now, it wouldn't sell. But a big iPod will.
Books that cost $26 in stores, will cost half that on iBooks and Amazon. HALF. Its the same BOOK! No you can't lug it around, or ruin in with your hands, or re-sell it (only downfall of ebooks), or keep it and stare it on your shelf.
Do you even stop and read what you've written or are you just too busy being arrogant and insulting people?
You listed several reasons why eBooks SHOULD cost less than their printed counterparts:
and therein lies the success of the business model.
Apple has effectively said, Amazon and iBooks will be the same, but the Kindle and iPad, are anything but. Your choice.
Yes, it's just f__king wonderful that Apple can FORCE the prices of content higher to make their own product more attractive. That they can FORCE part of the playing field to be leveled so that the rest that was already in their favor stands out.
Such a win for consumers...
That sure was quick.
not really. Amazon had no power in this game. they are a storefront, not the publisher. The publisher owns the titles, has all the power in saying what stores do and don't get. Unless there was a legally binding contract that set the prices and a period of time which was not over, Amazon had only two choices, carry the titles at the publisher's price or not. They tried not. Then realized that the publisher has choices (including direct sales) and they were only hurting themselves. The smartest comment they made was that it was up to the market to decide if the publisher is right or wrong.
That said, depending on the title, you are still saving a fair chunk of change at $15 a book compared to what you pay for a physical one. So perhaps the market will go with the pricing. We shall see
Apple is using toys and games to teach us students a new user interface for a new computing platform. Once the pieces are in place (an abundance of software), Apple will introduce a Macbook Touch. It will have ports, a camera, be a stand alone product that backs itself up to time capsule, it will have a large hard drive... If they introduced it now, it wouldn't sell. But a big iPod will.
This is 100% correct. The product that all the haters really want, is coming.
Remember, the iPad was not given the "i" moniker for no reason.
Mark my words, there is "Mac" monikered product with multi-touch in the works as well. It won't cost anywhere near $500, and nor should it.
Do you even stop and read what you've written or are you just too busy being arrogant and insulting people?
You listed several reasons why eBooks SHOULD cost less than their printed counterparts:
Yes, it's just f__king wonderful that Apple can FORCE the prices of content higher to make their own product more attractive. That they can FORCE part of the playing field to be leveled so that the rest that was already in their favor stands out.
Such a win for consumers...
When you're trying to criticized Apple's online content distribution prices, its very easy to ignore the fact that THEY are sole reason we have $0.69 - $1.29 songs, and $1.99 tv shows. Not to mention $4.99 movies that are not new releases.
But I guess those prices are too high for you.
They basically want a 4.99 to 14.99 price range.
Amazon is trying to keep the price at 9.99 at all times from what i've gathered from the other thread on AI.
It is just a glorified iPod Touch. And now this whole price thing. I was hesitant about buying one before, but now I am turning. It is all a game and we are just pawns. I'm getting off at the next bus stop.
Do you think that the iPad will be remembered as Apple jumping the shark?
I'll be happy to explain. Amazon was never interested in making money off the ebooks they sell. They were interested in:
1. Being the cheapest and most convenient medium.
2. Selling you an insanely over priced Kindle.
3. Selling you a hundred dollars worth of crap you didn't come to Amazon to buy, because your subconscious is sucking in the 500 products on each page that Amazon somehow knows you really want.
Amazon kind of lost sight of their business model when they started tailoring their content prices to sell Kindle. Oh they said that they won't twist their model to favor Kindle but then they went ahead and did it.
It would be wise of them to get out of the hardware business seeing as they can't maintain their discipline and are being blinded by the gazillions of $$$$ that they see Apple stockpiling. They are not and will never be a hardware company. They are risking their whole business by succumbing to the siren song of hardware profits. If the walking, talking ego bloat over at Techcrunch was able to accept that hardware is not their thing, surely Amazon, who heretofore always had its feet firmly planted on the ground, should be able to make that admission as well.
"From the point of view of Jeff Bezos' bank account, Amazon is the entire supply chain and should take that share of the cake that formerly went to both wholesalers and booksellers. They do this by buying wholesale and selling retail, taking up to a 70% discount from the publishers and selling for whatever they can get. Their stalking horse for this is the Kindle publishing platform; they're trying to in-source the publisher by asserting contractual terms that mean the publisher isn't merely selling them books wholesale, but is sublicencing the works to be republished via the Kindle publishing platform. Publishers sublicensing rights is SOP in the industry, but not normally handled this way -- and it allows Amazon to grab another chunk of the supply chain if they get away with it, turning the traditional publishers into vestigial editing/marketing appendages.
The agency model Apple proposed -- and that publishers like Macmillan enthusiastically endorse -- collapses the supply chain in a different direction, so it looks like: author -> publisher -> fixed-price distributor -> reader. In this model Amazon is shoved back into the box labelled 'fixed-price distributor' and get to take the retail cut only. Meanwhile: fewer supply chain links mean lower overheads and, ultimately, cheaper books without cutting into the authors or publishers profits."
THIS is why publishers are willing to buck Amazon. This was also a friction point between Apple and music companies.
"(Note that Amazon have been trying to grab a larger share of the cake by dipping into the publishers -- and the authors -- share of what meagre profits there are (book publishing is notoriously, uniquely unprofitable, within the media world), even though they've already got the wholesale and retail supply chains stitched up. Their buy wholesale/sell retail model screws publishers' ability to manage their cash flow and tends to induce price wars on the supply side, which is okay if we're talking widgets with a range of competing suppliers, but books are individually unique products and the industry already runs on alarmingly narrow margins: this isn't the music or movie biz.)"
"It's interesting to note that unlike the music industry who had to be pushed, the big publishers seem to be willing to grab a passing lifeline."
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog...outsiders.html
Apple, in NOT screwing over content producers provides a sustainable ecosystem for ebooks and authors. Amazon was no consumer's advocate.
Another Author's take:
http://www.sfwa.org/2010/01/why-my-b...com/#more-7406
It IS a win, because you petulant children that call yourself "consumers" are not all important, and are not entitled to anything.
Are you a Stalinist? Capitalism, when it works properly, results in in low prices for consumers. That has been known since the time of Adam Smith.
Here, a duopoly situation exists, and fanbois are falling all over themselves to convince themselves that it is a Good Thing.
I say bring on the competition.
This is 100% correct. The product that all the haters really want, is coming.
Cool. But that is what we were told for years, and were disappointed last Wednesday. Maybe next time Apple will get it right?
In the meantime, it looks like we'll have our choice of fully-realized products coming soon. Lots of competent manufacturers are announcing Android tablets for the rest of us.
It will be interesting to see the Win7 touchscreen devices, but likely the interface will be a kludge, given that Win7 is designed for a keyboard and mouse. That's why I'm more interested in Android tablets.
When you're trying to criticized Apple's online content distribution prices, its very easy to ignore the fact that THEY are sole reason we have $0.69 - $1.29 songs, and $1.99 tv shows. Not to mention $4.99 movies that are not new releases.
But I guess those prices are too high for you.
Why are your guesses so often wrong?
He's not talking about "Apple's online content distribution prices". He's referring to a subset: Apple's eBook prices.
Yes, it's just f__king wonderful that Apple can FORCE the prices of content higher to make their own product more attractive. That they can FORCE part of the playing field to be leveled so that the rest that was already in their favor stands out.
Such a win for consumers...
Yes, just like the death of professional, properly reported, multi-sourced and fact-checked journalism and the rise of hack reportage of a thousand and one 'news' articles based on a single unverified source is a win as well.
What are you talking about? Do you even know? Amazon is putting other retailers OUT of business. No, prices should not continue to come down on everything as fast as Amazon and Walmart can push it. Only someone under the age of perhaps 16 might think this way, before getting out into the world and realizing things have to cost money or people won't (can't) make them.
And only someone under the age of 6 doesn't understand that this is what happens when you have a mature capitalist market, see Russell's paradox. So you are mostly complaining against the capitalistic system, boo hoo, go get yourself a revolt and communize the whole country.
Books that cost $26 in stores, will cost half that on iBooks and Amazon. HALF. Its the same BOOK! No you can't lug it around, or ruin in with your hands, or re-sell it (only downfall of ebooks), or keep it and stare it on your shelf.
Quite a trade-off. It means that everytime I lose my iPad, bang, I lose my library. And it seems I can't lend or borrow. And it seems I can't decorate my wall. No, if it's just bytes, it's lame. If one pirates this stuff, at least they do with it everything they want to. I mean, this is the same shit that we've been through in the music debacle!
You want to pirate stuff? Go ahead. It's illegal, and it's wrong. It also doesn't matter. Every song and movie imaginable can be found illegally for free. Or you can buy it legally.
It's illegal, not wrong. I am not interested in pirating. I was more interested in having a good retailing experience, an ease of access to good books with "just works" polish in it. I like that, I'm willing to buy that kind of experience. I am not willing to bend over for it though.
The number of people purchasing from iTunes everyday indicates what people are willing to do, even with free and easy theft at their finger tips.
iTunes doesn't place "physical" musics against "byte" musics: either DVD or CDs, they are all bytes. A book is physical, and I don't need to charge it. I don't need a fancy software to turn the page (and go woooow because it looks so much as the real thing).
Worse, books are measly 100kb.
and therein lies the success of the business model.
Music costs 1 buck. Success. Movies? Where is the success of movies in iTunes? Haven't seen it.
Apple has effectively said, Amazon and iBooks will be the same, but the Kindle and iPad, are anything but. Your choice.
Oh ok, sure about that. That's why Amazon ducked. Doesn't mean we should applaud the bucks raise.
Are you a Stalinist? Capitalism, when it works properly, results in in low prices for consumers. That has been known since the time of Adam Smith.
Here, a duopoly situation exists, and fanbois are falling all over themselves to convince themselves that it is a Good Thing.
I say bring on the competition.
Capitalism means that consumers should get to pay the lowest price possible?!!? Since when.
Capitalism wasn't meant for the consumer... it was meant for the manufacturer and the supply chain.
If someone along the supply chain is messing up the price structure by undercutting everyone with lowball prices then something, somewhere has to give. We see it happen all of the time. Walmart's effect on the retail market is a good example. In the beginning it always looks like the consumer is winning. In the end, though, it becomes obvious that the damage caused by lowball pricing is a very bad to the overall marketplace.
Apple saw this crack in the foundation and decided to take advantage of it. Unfortunately, once you give the consumer something it's very hard to take it away so only time will tell if this strategy will work.
Id love to see how much they are going to charge for school textbooks, cause i'll take free if it isnt reasonably priced and im sure the younger generations will as well.