On the suggestion of paying for iTunes through greater iPod margins: This is a bad idea for consumers, because it takes away the incentive for Apple to maintain a broad catalogue, at least in the short term, until people start looking more seriously at what's available in different catalogues. I don't think Apple is interested in such a model, given that the Music Store revenue is finally going somewhere.
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5 months, 1 week ago by
Philipp .
4 Replies
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5.0 stars
Apple Ipods are some of the most highpriced music players available. The same however goes for thier computers. I think they could get away with such a system, but I agree it would not be in thier best interest.
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I love my iPod but I think paying by the song is more appropriate for now.
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5.0 stars
I think the iPod is the best player hands down. I refuse to pay $10 for music I don't really own. Besides, the quality (128) is terrible. Listening to an iTunes download on a good setup is like watching a rear projection at an angle, it SUCKS!
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Great replies. I thought about this some more, and realised it's not just the catalogue that's affected by this - it's the quality of service as well. At the moment, the main benefit to using the iTunes store is that you get your music more or less instantly. However, if they've already harvested my money when I bought the player, why keep up the bandwidth to guarantee fast downloads? Apple is not an ISP (yet), they have to buy bandwidth at the same conditions as other mortals.
Josh - I feel the same, about quality but I think gradually the catalogue will become available in iTunes "Plus" quality, which is what I've occasionally been buying. And it's free of DRM, so you do own it.
On the up side, this kind of flatrate idea could help remove some of the barriers between countries, where, for instance, different content is available in the UK and US, or even Canada. (France, Germany, Japan, ... it sucks for people who travel to be refused access because the locale of their iTunes setup does not agree with the geolocation estimated from their IP. From recent experience, they seem to have solved that problem, but your mileage may vary...)
Another problem is that if you have a flatrate, a lot of people will simply buy a huge external hard disk and download *everything*. So now, how do you decide which artists the money should go to? Is iTunes going to phone home the ratings I put on songs? How often I play them? I remember there was a lot of upset when they launched the iTunes mini-store feature. I'm sure that concern hasn't gone away.
Alex W.
Heidi C.
Josh D.
Philipp .
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