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.'"
Carl Bialik from the WSJ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Either way, I'm not sure I like the precedent. (Seeing as how WSJ is subscription-based.)
illegal downloading... (Score:3, Insightful)
Am I the only one who sees this statement as falsely implying that all free downloads are ilelgal as opposed to those not authorized by the copyright holder/on works in the public domain, or is it just me?
Pricing (Score:5, Insightful)
The saddest part about it (Score:2, Insightful)
Markets are efficient (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see this happening (Score:3, Insightful)
But to listen to half-assed quality tunes on a device not made for that and probably sucks the batterylife of said device, I don't see this thing suceeding in pulling in regular customers to make decent revenue.
Who'd pay 1-1/2 times iTunes price? Which is already overpriced considering what I can get some used CDs for on amazon.com or ebay or half.com, etcetera.
Let's be honest here (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Compared to ringtones, not so bad (Score:3, Insightful)
They can get away with it too. (Score:4, Insightful)
Sprint couldn't just give you decent Internet access and have you go out onto a competitive net and find your own music vendor. They have to try to tie you to their own over priced service. To many carriers, a free and openly competitive Internet puts puts them out of the game by reducing them to what they really are -- nothing more than carriers. Expect more of this in the future.
Ok, let me get this straight (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Compared to ringtones, not so bad (Score:3, Insightful)
Europe has a better market for mobile phones then the US. We're lucky if we can get a phone that has USB capability, and they usually only use proprietary cables.
Ah Hah! EXACTLY as I've been saying! (Score:3, Insightful)
In other words, folks, NOBODY BUYS MUSIC! They pay for the CONVENIENCE of accessing what they view as FREE music!
Sprint's price will prove to be too high, of course - the sweet spot has already been demonstrated by Apple to be "under a dollar".
But the point has now been made by a major corporation - NOBODY BUYS MUSIC!
The only reason people spend money for music is the CONVENIENCE. Only for the few decades when there was no ability to record music at home - i.e., during the early days of phonograph records and no tape recorders - did people EVER PAY for music. They paid to LISTEN to music - not the same thing at all! They paid to go to concerts, or clubs, or wherever an artist was performing.
People will pay for a performance by a live person since they know people don't work for free.
People will also pay for an object that lets them listen to music wherever and whenever they want - whether that's a cassette recording off the radio, or a ripped CD on an iPod.
But they will NOT pay for music itself!
Get a clue, music industry and artists! Change your business model!
Re:SonyEricsson will include iTunes (Score:4, Insightful)
1) Cell phones have the same problem as broadband... somebody has to install all the last-mile equipment. It's a pretty big investment, so only a handful of companies do it. And ultimately those companies are able to throw their weight around, even when they resell their traffic to other carriers [wikipedia.org].
2) In the US, consumers buy their cell phones from the carriers, instead of directly from the manufacturer. They do this because carriers give them a big discount in exchange for a longer service contract. However, this means that the relationship between the carrier and the manufacturer is very strong, so the carriers have a lot of influence over what features the manufactuers build into phones. It's kind of like what would happen if the cable company were able to tell the TV manufacturers what to do, or if broadband ISP's were able to tell computer manufacturers what to do.
Re:The problem is here is (lack of) ease of access (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:what? (Score:4, Insightful)
First the ringtone market seems to be booming, from over 2 billion now to maybe 5 billion in the next few years. Why do people buy these ringtones? Why not just download the song, crop it, and transfer to phone. Well, many people don't know how to do the later. And even if they did, imagine the value of showing your friends that you have a cool ringtone.You are out drinking your $5 beer or $5 coffe, perhaps $2 for a song is not so much.
Second, people pay a great deal of money to see a concert that is mostly lights and mirrors, when an equally talented musician could be seen for much less, sans the flash. Why do people pay so much for these concerts? For the music? To be seen? For the socilization? To have beer spilt on thier clothes? Clearly the value is there.
At the end of the day, people spend money on stupid stuff. Perhaps the market for this is kids who do not have money for an album, but can afford to buy single songs off thier phone, then figure out some way to pay for it at the end of the month. Perhaps the retailers are hoping that everyone with a cell phone will buy one song per month. Clearly the cash is there, and the impulsiveness is there. Now we have opportunity. People want phones to do cool stuff. At this markup no one has to sell a lot of songs, just a few.
Market Research..... (Score:3, Insightful)
-Well ...only one in one thousand !
-Let's see : $2.50 x (# customers) / 1000 .....Hey! it's profitable !
-Let's go for it...
Re:Carl Bialik from the WSJ? (Score:4, Insightful)
The reason this is "wrong" is that many of us dislike the telecoms for abusing their customers. They lock us in and screw with us, and they buy the laws to make it enforceable. Yes, it is irresponsible for someone to pay 2.50$ for a downloadable song, but what's truly irresponsible is giving money to these detached corporations. Just like doing drugs is "wrong".. I don't give a flying @#&$ what you do with your brain cells, the problem isn't about people getting stoned, it's about money falling into the hands of criminals.
While it's not illegal to be a ruthless telecom, it certainly is immoral.
Why cell phones suck in the United States (Score:3, Insightful)
What stops you using a different device?
Unavailability of compatible "different devices" in the United States, perhaps? I've looked but failed to find any providers with decent coverage in the United States that advertise SIM-only plans or any place to buy a SIM-less GSM phone in the United States.
Phone Monopolies (Score:1, Insightful)
a monopolistic business. Right now they are making huge
profits off of things like ringtones, wallpapers, games, music,
etc because they control the way consumers can access these things.
What other type of device do you own where the content is controlled
by the place you purchased the device from?
There doesn't seem to be any way to stop this because they have
huge lobbies in Washington passing legislation that is favorable to
them.
And..guess what? They very much desire to control trade on the
internet in the same way. So if it it isn't stopped here and now, expect
things to get much worse.
Anytime competition is artificially stifled the consumer will suffer.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Carl Bialik from the WSJ? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Carl Bialik from the WSJ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Parent is touching upon a good point...
What is supposed to be the reason drugs are illegal? Don't drugs harm societies since the addicts ruin their families and steal/rob/murder others in order to get (more money)/(more drugs)??? In some sense, it seems as if society has decided that the harms from drugs are intolerable...
The telecoms (especially cell carriers) do many things that harm society in a similar way (maybe less severe per person, but affect greater numbers of people). Look at the effect on developing adolescents...
Unfortunately, unlike "drugs", most of society is duped by the advertising of such companies to see the true evil that lurks... Some clothing companies such as "Old Navy" seem equally evil...
Why are cell "ringtones" an industry??? How many people ever bought wired telephones for the sound of their ringer? (I'd bet most didn't). So why are cell phone ring tones all the noise? One word: Marketing. Mass advertising has convinced the public that the only way they can differentiate themselves is by the sound of their cell phone, and that they must change their cell phone ringer as often as their shirt.
Why are cell phone "screensavers" something that is advertised??? It only shows how fickle society has become...
Marketing also dupes the public into thinking that they only way they can get ringtones is by paying a few bucks each or by getting them for "free" by special offers that require full disclosure of personal info...
It doesn't seem to occur to most people that they could simply just download a cool MID or WAV file from any website and upload to their phone via the USB port in their phone (or via email/text message)... (FREE)
Please note that I am not trying to confuse things "immoral" from those "illegal". These are two separate concepts... However many societies tend to make things that are "highly immoral" formally "illegal".
The wireless carriers have built entire sub-industries out of deception... Although this isn't strictly illegal, it is certainly immoral.