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iTunes Hits 100 Million

mojohanna said:
I stand corrected. I went back and looked at some of my old receipts. No sales tax. Sorry about that, I could have sworn that I had paid sales tax. How long b4 the govt comes a calling on that one. hmm 6% tax on 99,000,000. Thats a lot of cash.
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I am sooo jealous. I am in KY and pay the 6% sales tax on the iTMS downloads. Apple must have a distribution center here. That can be the only explanation. I doubt they are headquartered here. Cupertino, KY; yes that's it! :)

But I am paying this for a week or two. Wonder why....
 
Mr_Ed said:
Yeah, it takes a special breed to go into innovation withdrawals like that :D I see you are from Orlando (I am too) so let me ask you: Weren't you just a tad disappointed with the size and layout of the Apple Store at Millenia? I sure was. I realize the Millenia Mall is probably expensive retail space for this area but damn! The store is tiny.
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I live in daytona but the funny thing is that the people at millennia know me when I come in. It may be small but the people their are great...
 
eric_n_dfw said:
She's a keeper then!

My wife has learned to not even talk to me during such events. (Although I didn't even try for this one.)
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I have to feel very very bad for your poor wife ...
 
Originally Posted by mojohanna
Actually, I did read the rules:
Taxes. All taxes associated with the receipt or use of the prizes are the sole responsibility of each winner. Apple reserves the right to withhold any taxes as required by applicable law. All prizes will be awarded (other than prizes withheld for tax purposes as required by applicable law) and are not transferable. No substitutions (including for cash) are permitted, but Apple reserves the right to substitute a prize of equal or greater monetary value to the prizes if for any reason any prize cannot be awarded as contemplated in these rules.

He better get out his check book!!
Originally Posted by Armsreach
I don't know about you, but I have yet to pay any tax on any purchased music, nor did I have to pay tax on any music credits I had.
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Mojohanna is referring to income tax, not sales tax. Good thing the winner is just a college student - he'll probably get most of the tax withholdings back after he files his 2004 tax return.
 
HA! Look at that! #98,200,000! Disneyland Children's Sing-Along Chorus! I KNEW it! In an early post of mine I predicted that a song by D.C.S.A.C. would be a winner just because that would be too awful--and I wasn't far wrong.

It was "John-Jacob-Jinglehimer-Schmid" rather than "Swanee River" as I feared it might be, but there you go. :p
 
Well I hope nobody relied on my countdown calculations. I guess too many people purchased near the winning times.

My alert level final results:

http://ym.muda.org/itunes/

Also notice at 95,800,000 apple proved their own counter wasn't precise.

shenanigans?
 
jenniff said:
I don't get it. How did they prove their own counter wasn't precise?
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because apple.com showed this number:

Jul. 3 19:10:00 EDT 95,799,366

yet the winners page shows this:

2004-07-03 16:09 (PDT) 95,800,000

And since 7:10 is after 7:09 this means either they un-sold a bunch of songs in-between the two readings or the counter was a little behind.
 
That just means that Apple.com's counter was delayed rather than up-to-the second tracking at the moment of each sale (which the iTunes Store itself does know, for the contest). No surprise there. (Or even with no delay in the process at all, Apple.com would still have been up to 5 minutes old info just because it only changed every 5.)
 
G5orbust said:
I feel bad that I didnt contribute... stupid lack of a credit card...
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I wished they had alternative methods of payment like sending them a check and being credited for it ot allowing the use of PayPal because not all of us have a credit card and others don't really wanna have one.
 
Jackal05 said:
I wished they had alternative methods of payment like sending them a check and being credited for it ot allowing the use of PayPal because not all of us have a credit card and others don't really wanna have one.
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Go to Target and buy a Prepaid card, it's $15. You scratch off the silvery stuff on the back, and type the code into the iTunes "Redeem" section. Shazam, you have yourself $15 credit on the iTunes Music Store.

Oh, but I suppose that wouldn't do you any good if you need a credit card to open an account in the first place. But, I don't think you do. I don't recall, it's been such a long time since I registered.
 
Well, Australia's still iTMS deprived :(
But it's good anyways.

The plan is to have a credit card holder in the US/Europe and then just pay them over PayPal or something.
 
ITR 81 said:
nice graph:

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To all those suggesting keeping this up very regularly.... see that drop right before the rise? That's why apple doesn't want to keep doing this. It doesn't increase sales, but lumps them togeather. In fact, they could lower sales if it was regular, b/c people would go, hmm, do I want to buy this, or do I want to wait and take a stab at an ipod? And then they would forget or miss it or pick up the phone instead of looking online, and go, OK, I'll wait on this. And waiting, here, actually means non-sales, because it's a lot harder to justify spending some ammount in one chunk than it is in manageable bits. This only increased sales because people used it to justify buying things now that they were going to wait on or not buy. And even then, the only reason it's worth apple's time is because it got publicity and new users.

So, next 100 mill mark? Maybe. Every 100,000? No.


Hey an odd note-I just got magnetic fields, "I thought you were my boyfriend" EP (3 songs on it) for $.49... weird. Each song on it is listed as 99 cents, too. If your interested, get it before it's fixed...
 
Jackal05 said:
I wished they had alternative methods of payment like sending them a check and being credited for it ot allowing the use of PayPal because not all of us have a credit card and others don't really wanna have one.
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How can one live without a credit card in this day? Checks are so 90s. I write one per month, to the paper boy. If you have a checking account, get a debit card. The benefits of a credit card linked to your checking account.
 
"How can one live without a credit card in this day? Checks are so 90s. I write one per month, to the paper boy. If you have a checking account, get a debit card. The benefits of a credit card linked to your checking account.
Today 08:47 AM "

Actually many europeans also make do without credit cards and simply use direct money transfers instead. Sure it's more hassle, so why do we do it?

Because every time you use your credit card, you pay the company for the convenience...

So i can either enter my bank details to pay for a book on amazon.de and pay 7,99 for it. OR I enter a credit card number and pay 7,99 + a percentage for my cc company.

I think both varients have their uses, but credit cards aren't so gret either.
 
aptmunich said:
Because every time you use your credit card, you pay the company for the convenience...

So i can either enter my bank details to pay for a book on amazon.de and pay 7,99 for it. OR I enter a credit card number and pay 7,99 + a percentage for my cc company.

I think both varients have their uses, but credit cards aren't so gret either.
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In the UK it is common practice for the retailer to absorb the cost of the customer using a credit card so you pay the same amount regardless of how you pay. The main exceptions to the rule I can think of right know are budget airlines - especially Ryanair who charge you £4 for a credit card or £2 for a debit card on-line ticket sale. How the hell else are you going to pay? It's just a con.
 
jenniff said:
How often do you pay tax on anything you buy online? I know when I buy Lancôme makeup online, it's always tax free. When I buy music at cdbaby.com and other places, it's tax free. If there isn't a store or HQ in the state you are in, isn't it tax-free when you buy it online?
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It's not tax free. A merchant isn't required to collect sales tax if he doesn't have an incorporated point of presence in your state. But the tax is still owed. You are expected, by law, to pay that sales tax on your own (typically via a form included with your state income tax.)

I realize that most people do not pay this tax (either because they don't realize they should or because they choose not to) and prosecutions for non-payment are extremely rare (due to the difficulty of gathering proof and the relatively small amounts typically involved) but this doesn't change the fact that the tax is still owed.
 
jenniff said:
Go to Target and buy a Prepaid card, it's $15. You scratch off the silvery stuff on the back, and type the code into the iTunes "Redeem" section. Shazam, you have yourself $15 credit on the iTunes Music Store.

Oh, but I suppose that wouldn't do you any good if you need a credit card to open an account in the first place. But, I don't think you do. I don't recall, it's been such a long time since I registered.
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Perhaps a person could use one of those pre-paid Visa/Mastercards. It's like a regular Visa/MC but has a balance on it, when it's depleted you get a new one. They are usually targetted for students in college, parents sending them money type of thing.

But really, how can people live without a credit card these days. Even just a debit/credit card type....
 
3-22 said:
But really, how can people live without a credit card these days. Even just a debit/credit card type....
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I know plenty of people who don't have a card. I couldn't get one for the longest time. I still can't get one, I have a card with my name on it that is a joint account with someone else.

People I know who do not have credit cards have a lot of cash on hand. Or, they write checks if they expect to make a large purchase. They don't spend nearly as much money as me, solely because of the fact that they don't have a credit card. Take the iTMS, for instance. They wouldn't buy anything from there. They'd go buy the actual CD. Me, I'll go buy a few songs, and then later go buy the actual CD. Sad, but true.

Credit cards are just a convenience, not a necessity. Just like laptops, wireless internet, TiVo, and cell phones.
 
aptmunich said:
"How can one live without a credit card in this day? Checks are so 90s. I write one per month, to the paper boy. If you have a checking account, get a debit card. The benefits of a credit card linked to your checking account.
Today 08:47 AM "

Actually many europeans also make do without credit cards and simply use direct money transfers instead. Sure it's more hassle, so why do we do it?

Because every time you use your credit card, you pay the company for the convenience...

So i can either enter my bank details to pay for a book on amazon.de and pay 7,99 for it. OR I enter a credit card number and pay 7,99 + a percentage for my cc company.

I think both varients have their uses, but credit cards aren't so gret either.
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Banks are getting you guys over there. Here the VENDOR pays a merchant fee to process the credit card. I would assume that in 99.9% of the cases, the vendor has bumped their margins a tad to offset this, but the consumer does not see an addtional charge just for using the credit card.
Then again, american consumers probably carry the highest debt load in the world due to the ease of use.
 
martijnvandijk said:
there's not a single woman in the list. What should this tell us...? :confused:
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I find it even more strange that not one european is in the list of winners. The iTMS is up since a while now. But only american winners. But the "contest" was also advertised on the european Apple websites. I find that very odd. Considering that the european iTMS makes at least 10% of the iTunes sales, statistically at least ONE person should have been from outside the US...

Looks like as if the european iTMS users were just used for the marketing hype...

groovebuster
 
groovebuster said:
I find it even more strange that not one european is in the list of winners. ...]
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If you go to each of the European ITMS sites, they say
that the list of winners will be available shortly...
but they've said that for a least two days now.
Can't guess what the problem is.
 
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