Raw insanity.\u00c2\u00a0 Right price point, wrong product\/service.<\/p>\n
Never forget the lesson of Apple, SIMPLICITY!\u00c2\u00a0 Which leads to USABILITY!<\/p>\n
With x number of people new to Google this year, what are the odds consumers are going to understand Lala’s business model?\u00c2\u00a0 Shit, I can’t understand their business model.\u00c2\u00a0 I rent the music online, but only online, I can use my own stuff online…what about the rarities, do those get uploaded too?\u00c2\u00a0 And, is it so complicated that I ultimately want to use this service?<\/p>\n
Bill Nguyen is a smart cookie.\u00c2\u00a0 I know him.\u00c2\u00a0 But his expertise is in tech, not the music business.\u00c2\u00a0 No one understands the music business except those who are in it!\u00c2\u00a0 Bill wanted to do right by artists, he wanted to broadcast radio concerts and pay the performers.\u00c2\u00a0 GREAT!\u00c2\u00a0 Except the record company gets a say.\u00c2\u00a0 And so does the publisher.\u00c2\u00a0 The former’s rights delineated in hundred page contracts so arcane that you can never get all your royalties because there can never be complete agreement as to what those royalties are, and the latter so concerned with a penny rate and making sure they get paid in the future that they hold up the whole process.<\/p>\n
A dime a track…AND YOU OWN IT!<\/p>\n
Then it doesn’t pay to steal.<\/p>\n
Isn’t that the exercise?\u00c2\u00a0 Coming up with a business proposition so good it doesn’t pay to be the criminal kind? It’s not about suing people into submission, but enticing them to do the right thing, BECAUSE THEY WANT TO!<\/p>\n
A dime a track sounds good to me.<\/p>\n
And it should sound good to rights holders.\u00c2\u00a0 Especially when they consider these files are not forever.\u00c2\u00a0 Try opening your old VisiCalc spreadsheets in Vista or Mac OS X.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re not even gonna TRY!\u00c2\u00a0 And you’re not gonna bitch, because you got your money out of that product, and just like you don’t want to watch TV on a tube, you don’t want that old, arcane software program.<\/p>\n
In other words, sell it to people now…\u00c2\u00a0 AND THEN SELL IT ALL OVER AGAIN!\u00c2\u00a0 Kind of like the upgrade from LP to CD, if you think about it.\u00c2\u00a0 Who’s gonna want the MP3\/AAC when you get pristine sound with something else? Especially when you’ve got to maintain a creaky system to listen to the old stuff!<\/p>\n
But the labels are so ignorant, they’ve given up almost a decade of charging to make sure the future is on their terms.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s like the oil companies not charging for gasoline for a decade because people don’t want to pay the freight.\u00c2\u00a0 Of course, files are digital and reproducible for free, but do you get the point?\u00c2\u00a0 THAT DOUGH IS NEVER COMING BACK!<\/p>\n
Instead of looking for perfection, the system that works for everybody, how about a little experimentation. Knowing that the future arrives and you always get to come to bat one more time.<\/p>\n
Amazon fails because the average person doesn’t want to download the software to get the tracks into their iTunes library.\u00c2\u00a0 Who cares if the files have no copy protection, people who are paying don’t care about DRM!<\/p>\n
But the freeloaders do.\u00c2\u00a0 So, if you create a system with no DRM and you get everything cheaply, how many freeloaders are left?\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Those with too much time and not enough money.\u00c2\u00a0 Ten percent are NEVER going to pay (according to Michael Eisner).\u00c2\u00a0 Are we trying to construct a system that ropes in them, or the vast majority?<\/p>\n
The iPod doesn’t come with FM transmission.\u00c2\u00a0 You\u00c2\u00a0 may bitch, but most people don’t want it.\u00c2\u00a0 You buy tracks easily, and they automatically sync to your hand-held device, the iPod.\u00c2\u00a0 This is what people want.\u00c2\u00a0 If they didn’t, tech repairmen would be out of business, the Geek Squad would go bankrupt.\u00c2\u00a0 People don’t know how their computers work and they don’t want to.\u00c2\u00a0 They just want utility.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what AOL delivered, utility.\u00c2\u00a0 AND, Steve Case was smart enough to merge with the valued Time Warner when it was clear that window of overpriced utility was coming to an end.<\/p>\n
Where are the smart people in the music business?\u00c2\u00a0 Who will let people like Bill Nguyen free?\u00c2\u00a0 Techies who can truly come up with innovative solutions that those in the record business cannot?\u00c2\u00a0 You don’t bring your car to the salesman to get fixed, you bring it to the mechanics.\u00c2\u00a0 These thirtysomething techies are the mechanics.\u00c2\u00a0 But the industry doesn’t want to give them any power, they’re afraid of them.\u00c2\u00a0 Because techies don’t cotton to intimidation, they don’t understand bullying. They understand 1’s and 0’s.\u00c2\u00a0 Scale.\u00c2\u00a0 Return on the dollar.\u00c2\u00a0 Honesty.<\/p>\n
There’s no honesty in the music business and those trying to maintain their power want to continue this pattern. Incomprehensible royalty plans with the company getting the lion’s share of the money with the public as the common enemy.<\/p>\n
The company comes last.\u00c2\u00a0 First comes the artist, then the consumer.\u00c2\u00a0 The company’s job is to facilitate the connection.\u00c2\u00a0 But today’s companies just want to inject a toll booth, that’s impossible to navigate.<\/p>\n
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