iTunes new pricing blows a subwoofer
Photo courtesy of HypebotMany of you may have heard iTunes new music download pricing changes to something called "variable pricing". Variable pricing as defined on wikipedia: characterized by individual bargaining and negotiation, and typically used for highly product differentiation high value items (like real estate). Simply put, variable pricing means NOT having a fixed cost. iTunes started offering music downloads like 7 years ago and has been the market leader in the selling of digital music. They originated the $.99 cents per song pricing standard that many (not all) other online music distributors followed. With this current change iTunes songs will vary from $.69, $.99 or $1.29 (a 30% increase). Most songs are still expected to be at the $.99 level, whereas the cheaper prices will be for older music and the higher price for most popular music. Personally, I think this is a bad idea for consumers especially in this economy. Many college students I have spoken to are contemplating going back to stealing music and not paying or looking to other sources like Amazon and Walmart for competitive pricing. One thing about this story that many people are overlooking is the fact that Apple iTunes has decided to go "DRM-Free". DRM (Digital Rights Management) in a nutshell made it difficult for the average person to buy music on iTunes and play that music on non-apple devices. This too me is more the story than the pricing changes. To go DRM-free now means iTunes music can be heard on so many other devices, players and platforms. It is certainly a blow to competitor Amazon.com. Amazon had DRM-free music a long time ago, well now they are going to lose that competitive advantage.
Many of you that know me personally, you know I look at the glass half-full, so I'm hoping that maybe having higher prices for the pop-Top-100-type music might just have music lovers and buyers experiment more with independent artists and those artists who don't always get the deserved attention they should have.
There is alot of speculation about why the price change was made. Was it Apples idea & market dominance? Was it the labels pressure due to lack luster cd sales? Was it an exchange for going DRM-free?
What are your thoughts?
Mario Armstrong
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Another important consideration that I think is worth noting is that while Apple has gone DRM-free with the songs that record companies have allowed them to in the iTunes store, they still do not offer that final song in a standard Mpeg-3 layer 1 format. The songs are still offered in the proprietary AAC format even though they are not protected, and that can still be a problem for some mobile devices and may require conversion.
Another upside is that most of the songs made available now are offered at the increased bit rate of 256 kbps rather than the lower bit rate of 128, which should offer an increased spectrum of sound to the listener.
Sorry for the long comment. Thank you for indulging a fellow squarespacer.