The artists must be thrilled
If they sell more songs, amass larger fanbases and get more people going to live events and concerts I bet they'd be thrilled too. (Norolleyes)
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Amazon Undercuts iTunes With 69-Cent Pricing on New Release MP3s
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If they sell more songs, amass larger fanbases and get more people going to live events and concerts I bet they'd be thrilled too. (Norolleyes)
That may be, but could the new prices also be from a recent deal between Amazon and the content providers? Can't agreements be changed after a specified time? Also, what Amazon is selling is not the same as what Apple sells. The music is the same, but the format and delivery options are different; with Apple it is in AAC that can be converted to MP3, whereas Amazon sells just the MP3.
I just love Amazon. They truly are earth's most consumer-centric retail store, as their slogan states.
Here's an example: I had to replace my new 17" MBP 4 times (!!) before finally getting an Apple laptop without issues. First one had serious screen leakage, second had terrible construction (non-adonized aluminum, almost felt rusty), third was great for a week, until it stopped turning on. Fourth seems ok so far, I hope it'll stay that way.
If I had to go through the Apple store, they'd be fixing and fixing the device while I was left with nothing at hand. Had I wanted to return it, I'd probably have paid a restocking fee.
With amazon, I get to keep the first laptop until the replacement arrives.
With amazon, I didn't have to pay the sales tax (not really Apple's fault), plus the item's price was 150$ cheaper than MSRP.
Two-day shipping was free, 1-day shipping was 4$. Again, cheaper than apple.
Amazon actually paid for the return shipping of the laptops. That's 70$ each time!
I think Amazon is poised to become the world's biggest player in retail and beyond. Cloud storage, EC2, S3, free video on demand for prime members, App store for Android, and oh yes - selling virtually anything I am interested in buying.
Here's an example: I had to replace my new 17" MBP 4 times (!!) before finally getting an Apple laptop without issues. First one had serious screen leakage, second had terrible construction (non-adonized aluminum, almost felt rusty), third was great for a week, until it stopped turning on. Fourth seems ok so far, I hope it'll stay that way.
If I had to go through the Apple store, they'd be fixing and fixing the device while I was left with nothing at hand. Had I wanted to return it, I'd probably have paid a restocking fee.
With amazon, I get to keep the first laptop until the replacement arrives.
With amazon, I didn't have to pay the sales tax (not really Apple's fault), plus the item's price was 150$ cheaper than MSRP.
Two-day shipping was free, 1-day shipping was 4$. Again, cheaper than apple.
Amazon actually paid for the return shipping of the laptops. That's 70$ each time!
I think Amazon is poised to become the world's biggest player in retail and beyond. Cloud storage, EC2, S3, free video on demand for prime members, App store for Android, and oh yes - selling virtually anything I am interested in buying.
Welcome to the 21st century.The artists must be thrilled
Artist don't make money off of downloads, they make it off of touring and selling all the promotional swag.
The old days they toured to support the album.
Today the album supports the tour. That's where the real money is made now.
I see this as a win for the artist if chopping .30 off of a download can get their music in front of more fans and more potential concert ticket buyers.
Sure, there are a number of reasons why Apple is offering product X at price Y and Amazon is offering product X at price Z. The only reason to start calling it collusion or saying the DoJ should look into it is if you irrationally hate every company that isn't Apple.
Lethal
How stupid can Jeff Bozo be?!
By undercutting the already cheap ala cart business model the record labels and the artist and writers etc are going to fell the pain right down to their pockets.
By undercutting the already cheap ala cart business model the record labels and the artist and writers etc are going to fell the pain right down to their pockets.
Anyone arguing against this is an idiot.
First people complain about not having choices or prices being too high. Now there are more options and pricing is lower.
Wow. Just wow.
Well those addicted to Apple can still pay more for their songs. Enjoy. I won't stop you. Just like those that want to pay more for ebooks.
Personally - I'll shop it around and pay the best price whoever is selling it.
First people complain about not having choices or prices being too high. Now there are more options and pricing is lower.
Wow. Just wow.
Well those addicted to Apple can still pay more for their songs. Enjoy. I won't stop you. Just like those that want to pay more for ebooks.
Personally - I'll shop it around and pay the best price whoever is selling it.
aac vs mp3
Anyone who says they would gladly pay twice as much for 256 aac than 256 mp3 is clearly brainwashed. The difference between the two at that bitrate is microscopic! At 128 kps then maybe we can talk about differences, but not 256. Amazon wins this battle.
And yes, I'd prefer to just buy the cd myself and rip it into whatever bitrate and codec I wanted (preferrably lossless).
Anyone who says they would gladly pay twice as much for 256 aac than 256 mp3 is clearly brainwashed. The difference between the two at that bitrate is microscopic! At 128 kps then maybe we can talk about differences, but not 256. Amazon wins this battle.
And yes, I'd prefer to just buy the cd myself and rip it into whatever bitrate and codec I wanted (preferrably lossless).
I'm willing to bet you'll see Amazon's share price take a jump again as the media starts to say that Amazon is going to steal iTunes market share. Wall Street just loves market share. I think they just enjoy the controversy. They'll connect Android's growth rate with lowered mp3 costs and figure through some immediate impact that Amazon will steal away iPhone and iTunes customers away in the long run and pull them to the Android platform.
I say that it's not wise to just lower prices if you're going to lose money on every sale. I still believe Wall Street will let Amazon get away with it. I'll stick with Apple's pricing model since I'm sure they know how to balance their books the best. Since the record companies approved of Apple's tiered pricing model, I think Amazon might be sticking its neck out again if this new pricing model isn't approved by the record companies.
Are you saying mp3 cannot be converted to aac? It certainly (and easily) can be done. You can even use iTunes to do it. It isn't the greatest idea as you aren't going to gain any quality and will almost certainly lose quality, but the exact same thing would happen converting aac to mp3.
I wonder what your response would have been if Apple had reduced their pricing model and Amazon had the higher one....
I'm guessing you'd praise Apple for the strategy. Maybe I'm wrong. But I am sure plenty here would.
Selling loss leaders is a very common retail tactic and is used by just about everyone (including Apple).
Lethal
Oh good. I like lower prices.
When I buy music, I typically buy from Amazon anyway. Their prices almost always seem to be cheaper than iTunes for the music I buy.
/would not buy or listen to anything by the artists listed in the above article. Just sayin'
I've only bought one song from Amazon and the sample rate was less than I get with iTunes. Anyone else notice a difference?
It would seem unusual to give a company with 10% of the revenue at least 35% rebate over a company with 90% of the revenue. This looks very much anti-competitive to me.
I wish iTunes had $0.69 downloads.
They have even much cheaper downloads sometimes; I suspect some were pricing mistakes. The iTunes LP "Plastic Beach" by Gorillaz was £1.69 (18 songs, one video + extras), probably a mistake
"24 Hour of Classical Music" is exactly that for £7.99. You know that you have to pay tax on all items that you buy without paying sales tax? Most people just "forget" to tell the tax man.
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I have to wonder how many people discussing audio quality buy their movies from iTunes vs Blu-Ray.
Just asking since apparently those people are so concerned with getting optimal performance from their media.
Not to take this off topic - but too many people have been duped by all the streaming serves and cable companies to believe they're getting a true HD experience when, in fact, they aren't because of the astronomical bitrate difference between what can be streamed vs delivered by hard media at current.
Just asking since apparently those people are so concerned with getting optimal performance from their media.
Not to take this off topic - but too many people have been duped by all the streaming serves and cable companies to believe they're getting a true HD experience when, in fact, they aren't because of the astronomical bitrate difference between what can be streamed vs delivered by hard media at current.
So are you saying that it would *not* look anti-competitive to you if the company already holding the lion's share of the market was on the receiving end of a generous price cut?
Who says Amazon is getting a better deal from the labels anyway? They could just be selling the tracks as loss leaders to drive more people to Amazon. The same basic approach helped turn Walmart into the biggest brick and mortar store in the world. Like I said before, loss leading is a common and legal retail tactic.
Lethal
I don't have a blu-ray player and have no plans on buying one. I also don't have an HD TV, still using a 10+ year old Sony Trinitron. It's not broke so it's not getting replaced till it is.
I buy all my TV shows and on iTunes in HD and watch them on my 15" MBP. I buy movies on iTunes as well as I don't rent and haven't in over 15 years.
Even if Amazon has 69 cent songs, I will likely continue buying on iTunes. Over the past year, most music has been purchased on my iPhone while I am out. Can't do that with Amazon.
why is paying less out of your pocket not a good thing? (unless i am reading you incorrectly...)
I still usually buy CDs for music I care about, if what I am after is not easily obtainable on CD I buy from an online store who offer 320kbps files when possible. Market forces are the only way they (Amazon, iTunes etc) will ever higher quality or lossless.
Yep. And they agreed to let the labels decide the price in exchange for the whole no DRM thing. Plus at the time they didn't apparently think to put that whole "same or better" rule in the mix.
so basically Apple gets what they deserve on this one. But I suspect they will weather the storm. THeir money is in hardware anyway
Itunes doesn't care about your ipod/iphone. You can transfer a itunes DRM song to any ipod in the world and it will play fine. However, if you copied that same song to someone elses PC and tried to play it, it would ask for the itunes password. If you didn't have it, you couldn't play it, on the PC. Take your ipod and copy it over...plays perfectly. It's weird but true.