Don’t tell me you love the physical version.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re the same people who e-mailed me a decade ago telling me that nothing could be superior to the CD.\u00c2\u00a0 I would say you’re part of the problem, but you’re completely inconsequential.<\/p>\n
What is the value of a book?<\/p>\n
No, let’s change it to an equation you can understand…\u00c2\u00a0 What is the value of a RECORD!<\/p>\n
My inbox is cluttered with mail from people railing against pirates, telling me that music is fairly priced at over ten dollars a CD.\u00c2\u00a0 Think of all the effort!\u00c2\u00a0 Think of all the mouths to be paid!\u00c2\u00a0 Think of all the enjoyment!<\/p>\n
What I love to tell these assholes is to continue to stare into the screen…\u00c2\u00a0 What’s the value of their computer?\u00c2\u00a0 You can buy one for $400, but the CPU, the RAM, never mind the monitor…what’s the value?\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, don’t tell me about creativity, the artist toiling in isolation. Do you know how much research, how much effort goes into these technological revolutions?\u00c2\u00a0 Furthermore, unlike you and your lazy ass, these programmers, these researchers, work almost ’round the clock, not tweeting to the faithful saying how great they are, but focusing on breakthroughs.\u00c2\u00a0 The work ethic of the average person stinks…and you wonder why he’s broke and complaining.<\/p>\n
We’re all gonna read books on electronic devices.\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t even bother to argue with me, you’re just displaying your ignorance, it’s just a matter of when.\u00c2\u00a0 Point is, when the future comes, where do you want to be?<\/p>\n
The executives at major labels decided when the future came they wanted to be retired, the unknown was scary, unpredictable.\u00c2\u00a0 So, they dragged their feet and got left behind.<\/p>\n
Amazon is doing just fine selling physical books.\u00c2\u00a0 They didn’t need an e-reader, the vaunted Kindle.\u00c2\u00a0 But they wanted to OWN the coming sphere.\u00c2\u00a0 Think about that, rather than railing against Apple’s dominance, how about a better mouse trap?\u00c2\u00a0 The labels argue with Apple about pricing, promotion, saying their hands are tied.\u00c2\u00a0 But they could innovate new solutions, yet they’ve been afraid to do so.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re too busy doing exactly what they’ve always done.\u00c2\u00a0 For all the talk of new media and 360 deals, the majors are slimmed down versions of what they’ve always been.\u00c2\u00a0 Machines that massage product for exhibition on radio.\u00c2\u00a0 But now, only Top Forty radio sells product in profitable amounts, at least by major label standards, and fewer people are paying attention…this is a business model?<\/p>\n
Amazon decided to lose money.\u00c2\u00a0 To invest in the Kindle.\u00c2\u00a0 An imperfect version 1.0, a better 2.0, yet far from the definitive take.\u00c2\u00a0 Just like the first iPod was 5 gigs and $400.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re planning for the Kindle to get cheaper and better.\u00c2\u00a0 Meanwhile, the early adopters, the people trading on Napster when you couldn’t see the benefit of live takes of your favorite tracks, never mind the ability to check out everything you ever wanted to hear, bought Kindles and are raving about them.\u00c2\u00a0 This is the evangelism you wish you had for your lame-ass record.<\/p>\n
But the big breakthrough is pricing.\u00c2\u00a0 Below wholesale.\u00c2\u00a0 Less than ten bucks for almost every book.\u00c2\u00a0 This incentivizes people to buy more!\u00c2\u00a0 Thirty bucks for a book that you might not read?\u00c2\u00a0 Ten dollars is the price of a movie!\u00c2\u00a0 If reading gets cheap enough, more people partake.\u00c2\u00a0 The major publishers don’t continue to raise prices to meet their targets, they make it up on volume.<\/p>\n
But the major publishers are freaked.\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t want Amazon to become dominant, they don’t want Amazon to have pricing control.\u00c2\u00a0 Fighting the Kindle is like convincing people to give up their iPod.\u00c2\u00a0 People have switched, and they like cheaper prices.\u00c2\u00a0 After all, there’s no printing and shipping!<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Sony, a name revered only in the minds of oldsters, has a competing product that’s overpriced and under-featured.\u00c2\u00a0 But Sony just announced that they too will have wireless downloading.\u00c2\u00a0 With a one inch larger screen, which will be touch-sensitive, yet more expensive.\u00c2\u00a0 Howard Stringer needs to be waterboarded.\u00c2\u00a0 Doesn’t he get it, that the old Sony paradigm is dead?\u00c2\u00a0 Where you overpay for the name, believing you’re getting a premium product?\u00c2\u00a0 Sony’s TV sales have tanked, the PS3 is a disaster, yet he can’t compete on price with e-books?<\/p>\n
But at least Sony is playing.<\/p>\n
Sony and Amazon and Plastic Logic and a few other companies you’ve never heard of are jockeying for position.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re willing to lose money now for a chance at a big win in the future.\u00c2\u00a0 The beneficiaries of all their effort?\u00c2\u00a0 The public!\u00c2\u00a0 The public loves being able to tote around thousands of songs in its pocket, the public loves instant availability of tracks, what part of this does the music industry not get?\u00c2\u00a0 You don’t try to reeducate your customers in some bizarre Eastern European fashion, you get ahead of your customers, you deliver what they cannot yet dream of, you satiate them, you thrill them to the point where they sell your product for you.<\/p>\n
MP3s will be history.\u00c2\u00a0 Why not sell them cheaply, in boatloads now, while there’s still desire?<\/p>\n
Ooh…we’ve got contracts, there are publishers, our hands are tied.\u00c2\u00a0 Like people give a shit?<\/p>\n
If Universal is so damn great, its executives such seers of the future, why did their EBITDA go down?\u00c2\u00a0 Apple reports record numbers in the midst of a recession…what kind of fucked up world do we live in where hardware triumphs over software?\u00c2\u00a0 Computers, iPods are worthless without content.\u00c2\u00a0 But rather than go into partnership with the hardware manufacturer\/Website designer, the music industry says no, or extracts a pound of flesh, making the whole deal not work.<\/p>\n
Everybody must have access to music.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody must pay for it.\u00c2\u00a0 Start here instead of trying to restrict and corral.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like teaching safe sex by preaching abstention.\u00c2\u00a0 Huh?\u00c2\u00a0 Like you can contain the raging hormones of teenagers?<\/p>\n
Jeff Bezos is ahead of the market.\u00c2\u00a0 The Kindle is getting better and cheaper.\u00c2\u00a0 The price of books is absurdly low.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s losing money now to profit big time in the future.\u00c2\u00a0 What part of this paradigm does the music industry not get?<\/p>\n
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