Seems to be that Apple's plan for killing optical is to be able to sell tiny $1 usb stick for $40!
There's no other product in the world that you could get this high profits!
Profits? Try researching
SaaS (Software as a Service). Then consider the traditional landline telephone, as well as GM's
OnStar service...even basic cellphone service too. In short, the business model that these all have in common is to lock consumers into paying monthly service fees that are a source of guarenteed revenue to the business, and the only time that they're not profitable is for the top 1-2% ... for which the provider will likely impose data caps, service throttling, extra fees, etc, in order to minimize losses and maintain profitability.
I get the fact that HDD storage could be considered on par with discs, but that doesn't factor in cases where you want to move fewer files. Discs make that very handy.
True, and USB thumb drives have made much (not all) of that type of use case even more handy.
I can send just one movie via disc for much, much less than buying a whole hard drive or a large thumb drive. When the client wants one file, and they don't want to download it (such as in my case with Dell) and they don't want to pay you to buy a whole HDD or thumb drive to send them, what does one do? In those sorts of situations, discs will remain cheaper.
Sure, when one has invested in (and is paying for) multiple technology options, one can pick whichever one is most optimal for any particular use case. In this example, the example's use case is for a one-way shipping of a one-shot.
Frankly, it depends upon one's industry to know if the above example is the most common use case, or not, to understand what its priority is.
To illustrate by contrast, I've attended meetings where before the first coffee break, all the presenters loan their USB thumb drive to the meeting secretary for uploading ... and then at the end of the day, they get their USBs back with a copy of everyone's presentations on it. This process actually replaced a CD-burning process, which was invariably always incomplete because of a late addition/change or augmentation...the attenders prefer it, and it also costs less for the meeting host.
Sure, cheap disposable media has its place...even the ancient 5.25" floppy didn't start out this way: it took time for its price to drop. Ditto the 3.5" floppy. Ditto the CD, then DVD ... and as per a conference I attended earlier this year, their handout package included a 4GB USB drive with all of the conference's proceedings on it. FWIW, they also had their organization's logo custom-imprinted on it...that's marketing, particularly since I'm more likely to re-use their USB thumb drive (and see their name repeatedly) than a one-shot CD/DVD read of the papers (to upload them to my server).
In any case, while it is true that a CD/DVD/etc is going to be cheaper than, say, an 8GB thumb drive ($10), even for a "one way disposable", the cost difference isn't necessarily as profound as it first appears when we also remember to include the entire transfer process. For example, if there's another ~$30 for FedEx overnight shipping...
That chart looks like it's suggesting iTunes revenue was up there in the $12 billion band, but even if it's only $1.4 billion in one quarter, it seems like a good profit. Point not taken.
FWIW, I believe that his intended point was to not ignore the other 95%.
The point is that Apple isn't pushing to kill discs in order to save people confusion or money. I believe their motive is to create hype and make more money than they already do. I like owning and using discs, so I have a motive to see them continue for a while. Simple as that.
That's kind of where I started this post: there's invariably going to be a business angle that financially benefits Apple/Apple's interests. Of course, the specific reasons here are ultimately only known to them, and to them alone: we're on the outside and limited to speculating.
When one looks at the IT industry, one of the paradigms that PCs introduced 30 years ago was a change from "rent" (services) to "own" (packaged software), which has clear lifecycle cost benefits to small / individual consumers in that they're not forced to have recurring monthly expenses just to keep on using their current capability ... but by the same token, that consumer benefit is also a "cost" to the providers of that software: their business model had to change from supporting existing customers to coming out with a "NEW!" product to try to motivate consumers to send money their way through new sales. As such, it should hardly be any wonder that SaaS has been kicking around now for several years, trying to gain marketplace acceptance and traction.
When we look back at the basic reason for optical media .. commercial media content .. what we see is a similarity in business models: physical media is the "buy it once, have it forever for as many accesses as I want" paradigm, whereas the streaming/subscriptions are the paradigm of "pay per use" or "pay monthly for having the right to access it" paradigm.
With multiple technology options, one can pick whichever one is most optimal for any particular use case (sound familiar?) ... but since Apple, where they've chosen not to support the BD option, for reasons ultimately only known to them, and to them alone, these options have effectively been constrained.
Hopefully, we will one day find out the real reasons why. There have been suggestions that physical media will fail, but (at least within the USA) the replacement infrastructure doesn't appear to be adequately mature yet. Perhaps we can look to see what's happening in places like the
UK then, even if it may only be still just a hint (and an imprecise one at that) of what a likely future direction may be. Clearly, the future isn't always particularly evident until it is the past.
-hh
