Costly Music Store Coming to Cellphones 294
Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "The new Sprint Music Store is the first legal music downloading service you can access right from a cellphone, and Wall Street Journal tech columnist Walt Mossberg gives high marks to the interface, download speed and playback quality. But he criticizes the 'stratospheric new price for the legal download of a single song: $2.50.' Sprint justifies the price because of the convenience and usability of its store. Mossberg responds, 'I believe something else is at work here: a lethal combination of two industries many consumers believe typically charge too much. One is the bumbling record industry, which has been seeking to raise prices in the fledgling legal downloading market even as it continues to bleed from free, illegal downloading. The other is the cellphone carriers, or, as I like to call them, "the Soviet ministries," which too often treat their customers as captive and refuse to allow open competition for services they offer over their networks.'"
What a bargain! (Score:3, Funny)
In Soviet Russia.... (Score:1, Funny)
Lethal combination? (Score:3, Funny)
- It's alive, Igor, it's alive...
- What is it, master?
- My greatest and most evil creation. Behold...
RIAA' BELL! *THUNDER*
Re:The saddest part about it (Score:2, Funny)
Well, we can rule out Kansas.
Judge Greene's tombstone is rattling (Score:5, Funny)
Back in 1984 (how appropriate), evil Judge Greene dismantled the AT&T monopoly. Instead of a benevolent Ma Bell guiding hapless consumers through an ever-more complex world, we entered an area of free-for-all market. Ma Bell was split into 6 entities. Suddenly, there were multiple telecom providers! Phones sold in stores instead of rented! Competition! Falling prices! Granted, the USA then experienced an unprecedented telecom boom. But telecom stock went into the crapper.
For almost two decades, this orgy of consumer felicity continued unabatted. Then, fortunately, the Clinton administration issued the 1996 Telecom Act, which watered down Greene's edict and allowed a wave of mergers to take place in the telecom industry.
Now, only two telecom companies remain, having absorbed all the baby Bells. We are finally seeing prices climb and customer service go back into the abysses where it belongs. But it was a long, hard road.
(Yes, it was sarcasm. Thanks for noticing).
Re:In Soviet Russia.... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Giving up on locked-down phones (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Compared to ringtones, not so bad (Score:5, Funny)
Right on. Although, a couple of weeks ago, I was sitting around in a student lounge with some of my friends when out of the blue, we hear a modem trying to establish a connection. Turns out the phone of some guy in the lounge was ringing.
Best. Ringtone. Ever.
Re:Carl Bialik from the WSJ? (Score:3, Funny)
With statutory rape, one is actively seeking out people not in the right state of mind to make decisions about their bodies that will have an impact on them for the rest of their lives.
Are you saying that most high school girls are out of their minds? I mean, I always suspected...