Comments on: Amazon follows Apple to $1.29

update After Apple introduces variable pricing for song downloads on iTunes, the online retailer and other music sellers approached by the music labels appear to follow suit.

[bruiser07]

wow the music labels have already forgotten that we could just download the songs for free? i'm not planning on ever paying 1.29/song.

[davidch14]

shoot if ITMS did not exist, Amazon prices would be twice the price
and subscription only. by buying from Amazon folks are only feeding
the real elephant here... THE LABELS.

i really am amazed at just how clueless everyone is. apple has
publicly fought for the 99 cents uniform price, individual song
availabilty and DRM free for several years now.

the labels merely gave Amazon the right to sale low priced, DRM free
low cost tracks in the short term to break Apple's control. Amazon is
just the ***** in this game.

once Amazon has a large enough share, all prices will go up and
flexibility will be limited... GUARANTEED!

[TV James]

et tu, amazonus?

[thrillingwonder]

To anyone who thinks 99 cents is too much to pay for a piece of music, here's a clue: no one's listening to you either.

[Heebee Jeebies]

I will give Amazon.com my $1.29 long before I would Apple. Apple can go straight to hell and take all of their not so fantastic toys with them. People need to stop buying logos and start demanding products that are complete instead of having to upgrade every year to get features other have had for ages. Apple like Microsoft is pathetic.

Robert

[Donniebrasco]

I still buy CDs unless Amazon has the mp3 album for a few bucks. I like to get the liner notes and have a high quality version to burn high quality files to put on my mp3 player. Paying a couple bucks more to receive an actual product is worth it to me. For example, on Amazon the Judas Priest album "British Steel" is 10.99 for the CD or 9.99 for the mp3 album. I think the CD is worth the extra dollar. Maybe this isn't true for your new Jonas Brothers album, but I am not buying 99% of the stuff put out in the past year, I am assembling a music collection I couldn't afford in college and yes, downloaded back then.

[sciontcya]

LOL to all the Apple-haters that bashed Apple yesterday.
Oh you uncool kids with your HP laptops..."It's a PC, Lauren"
Oh yeah, it's all good in the MS camp these days.
Now your music from Amazon is the same price as Apple.
Guess it's time to load Limewire on that cool new cheap PC and steal your tunes like the good ol' days...

[Noneyabeeswax]

Well, when you think about it an album contains on average 10 tunes right? So .99 per tune works out to about .99 per song. So the labels are still getting 10.00 per album.

The independent artists need to get together and promote themselves.

The radio stations are monopolized even more than they were in the past, and radio was the main way artists got heard. And the labels control what gets heard. That's another reason media consolidation is such a bad idea.

I despise the industry for trying to dictate what I listen to whether it's news of entertainment.

That's one reason why the TV stations and cable providers are so afraid of the internet. Because people will vote on what they want to see by watching only what they're interested in, and the entertainment industry wants to MAKE you watch only what they want you to watch. They also want to remain the gatekeepers and and charge exorbitant fees for access. They deliberately keep choices to a minimum. The Movie moguls, the Music Industry and even the book publishers, will bleed the public dry if they're allowed to.

[S R]

"I can't imagine Amazon's excited about raising prices in a recession--they're probably responding to price increases by the record labels, which were made possible by Apple's capitulation. Good luck with that!"

With that statement, you pretty much have shown your analytical capability. Your career is now stuck in CNET. Good luck.

[SeizeCTRL]

The RIAA and record labels wonder why there's so much piracy on the net. Hey retards... you jacked up the price of CDs for an unbelievable profit, and then slowly doing the same for digital tracks! You only fuel piracy with price hikes. You want to curve piracy LOWER THE DAMN PRICES! People aren't going to pay $20 for a CD anymore. $5-10 is more realistic considering the cost of manufacturing has decreased dramatically. Seriously when you can pick up a DVD burner for $20 and 100 CDRs for $10, how can you really justify the prices some stores charge for a CD?

[sciontcya]

I"m curious - I'm with you on price-drops...
Do people say the same about Blu-Ray disks?
I almost **** when I went into BestBuy after I got a BR for Xmas.
THAT is insane!

[manwithoutastar]

I can't believe you people spend money to download music. GET A LIFE! When you are old and living in the nursing home but cannot afford to hire that hot swedish nurse to wipe your a*s, you can look back at all the cr*p you purchased in your life and know why you have nurse Cratchett and the guy next to you hase nurse Inga. Losers!

[TheStairMaster]

well, when/if download numbers take a massive nosedive, then a dollar a song will continue to be the standard. if people are willing to pay an extra 30 cents, then i guess thats their business, but I predict that this stunt will cause a loss in revenue, not an increase.

[Zoobie]

Problem is, teen girls probably buy a large percentage of the crap music sold on iTunes, and I don't think they will stop paying the extra $0.30 just to make a stand. No--they will buy Lady GaGa, Miley Cyrus, and the Jonas Brothers no matter the price and will be happy about it. So, unfortunately, revenue won't drop as many of us hope to see; rather, the record companies will get the increase they hoped for--especially over time as people become numb to the set prices.

Myself--I won't pay $1.29. Good music is timeless, and (in my opinion) generally won't be found for $1.29 on the "Top 100" lists. In fact, I'm hoping to find a bunch in the $0.69 section (although I haven't seen any of the price decreases, yet--those must be harder to input than price increases).

[sadchild]

death to major labels! they want us to pay $1.29 for ONE SONG? a computer file? no manufacturing costs?

viva la torrents and usenet. buy indie albums, support artists. anything major label, screw 'em. cuz they're screwin' you!

[He_And_Him_Studios]

Yay, and i loved that easy to calculate and get the most for your money 99 cents.

[llungster]

The labels are so full of it. They complain of piracy; they refuse to consider new models of distribution and delivery (digital music); then when that process actually makes money they want to raise prices to line their pockets. Let's face it, this has nothing to do with helping the artists; the labels couldn't care less about them. It's all about the labels.

There was a great article last week (?) by John Melloncamp about the transition of the music business and how/why it happened from his point of view. I wish I had the URL handy.

That all said, I don't have a problem with $1.29 but time will tell if that price holds up or if it'll go up yet again. As a listener, the problem I have is that the CD's (or albums) all suck. The quantity has gone way done. "Back in the day", an LP would have maybe 8 songs total with 4 good ones. Now a 10 track CD has one top 10 hit and that's it. So for me, I'd rather spend $1.29 for one song than $17.99 for an entire CD that's better off as a coaster.

As for Amazon, I still prefer them over iTunes. Apple is no better than the labels - it's just another monopoly. Different form, same basic idea. YMMV of course but to each his/her own.

[IDSNL]

I probably shouldn't admit this, but I have 6,274 songs on my MP3 player. I don't buy nearly as many as I rent because I like to try new artists and genres before I spend money on their albums.

I keep hoping Apple will offer a subscription plan for iTunes. In the meantime, I'll stick with a Zune 120 at $14.95 per month. Actually, since they provide 10 "free" purchase credits each month, it nets at $4.95. It would take me a lot of years at that rate to reach the $6,000 Apple or Amazon would have already cost me. Zune may not have the mega library that Apple does, and I'm sure the monthly fee will increase a little, too. But, despite my dislike for giving money to Microsoft, Zune suits me fine for now.

[voldemeg]

I have and never will buy a song for $.99 or more, that's just rediculous. I also no longer buy CDs unless I'm a very big fan of the artist, I get my downloaded songs from emusic.com for $.40 at the most expensive and I use the public library to get whatever they don't offer. I know people want to use the starving artist excuse for paying full price on music but honestly, just because an album was expensive to produce doesn't mean it's good, a lot of the best artists don't need some overpriced record company to make great music.

[enovikoff]

Ultimately what the music industry sells is image, not music. And their interest is in profits, not art. Why do you think they're so focused on Top 40 songs, while ignoring classical, jazz, and world music completely? It's because with a focused campaign of advertising (music videos, payola/sponsored playlists on the radio, internet buzz, and pin-up celebrities) they can create enough buzz to allow people to think they're part of the "in-crowd" by listening to the mass-production noise they churn out. It's a very profitable model - and you notice their legal campaigns center around people sharing files of Top-40 music, not someone who made a collection of chamber music available! What this means is that we - the consumer - are enabling this dysfunction by gullibly buying into the marketing machine the media companies have set up. When we learn that self-esteem comes from the self, not from hollywood and it's TV idols, then we'll be free of the tyranny of overpriced music and the RIAA.

[x181]

simple solution: don't give them your money and let them slowly die. but of course many of you don't get it and continue to spend money on this garbage.