iTunes vs. Music Industry · Aug 27, 06:50 PM by Jay
based on this article the music industry is at it again, trying to hose the consumer via Apple and iTunes.On the one hand, I don’t really care what the prices are, as long as all online stores are approximately the same (competitive landscape). On the other hand, I don’t want the Music Industry geniuses to drive consumers to the rental model (just a slippery slope on the way to pay per song play) by jacking the price points up.
But the things that have always frosted me about these issues are:
- That somehow Apple is evil because they have large market share – while I am an Apple user and have been known to bash Microsoft on occasion, I don’t follow this argument. I haven’t seen any general concensus that there is a better product out there that can’t gain traction because of Apple’s market dominance – at any price point.
That has been Apple’s argument in the PC world, that Apple make a better product, but it costs a bit more – people buy Windows because they don’t see greater value.
I just don’t see that in the MP3 player space, just me-too products that don’t have enough value add to gain traction. BTW, in this case, value add isn’t a feature list, its customer perceived value add, not company perceived value add…
- That there is something inherently valuable about many music stores online. Look, if I had to drive 50 miles to get the iTunes store and the Napster store was at the end of the block, then it might make a difference in my choice. But that’s not the case!
The only thing that makes a difference on the web is (arguably in order of importance): User Experience (first by a mile), Selection and Price (about equal), and Value Proposition (which is different than price in this market (see Subscriptions). So if Apple maintains a lead in ease of use (and iTunes/iPod integration is pretty darn easy to use) and Labels don’t start doing preferential pricing and distribution (which seems to me like it might be actionable by Apple or the Consumer) the way you compete is by creating a better experience or having a better or different value proposition. Which is what subscriptions are about. Some users find the subscription model very compelling. Some (myself for example) do not.
The question becomes do you want to own your music or do you want to rent it. I believe at this stage, people that buy iPods are for the most part music owners. I believe that the majority of people that are going subscription weren’t for the most part part of the music industries target audience anyway – they are the consumers that are buying a small handful of albums a year – for them, renting might make sense.
For people that buy many albums a year, they are probably beyond the radio in terms of playlist, so an online service needs to offer easy ways to discover music – on the face of it, rental appears to make sense, but if I have to pay an album’s worth of rental fee per month and I still don’t own the content, I’m not sure that’s a good value for me. Addtionally, owning the content means that 10 years from now, I can browse through my library and see what I have. If I rented it, I probably have pruned my library over time (to fit on my device or whatever) and will have to remember (rather being able to browse) what that song was. If I own it and need to prune, no problem, burn it to disc as backup – again, still browsable.
eh, lots of ideas in here, some conflicting, some needing expansion. Net Net, The Music Industry wants more money (and eventually wants you to pay each time you listen to a song). Apple has a tough end to end solution to overcome for competitors (and their first and last goals are eas of use, not world domination – that’s tough to beat). Subscriptions are interesting, but are a) a slippery slope to pay to play and b) not appropriate for everyones needs (has a variable value proposition)
shocked that this program would be allowed to have an indian name...