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Wal-Mart Relaunches Online Music Store
ack154 writes "The latest competitor in the paid music download business will now open its 'doors,' as Walmart begins selling songs at 88 cents online. It had recently finished a three month testing period and now will open to everyone. According to CNN, however, they don't care so much about selling music, 'Analysts have said the goal for Wal-Mart is to bring more people to its Web site.' Maybe they're taking cue from Apple in trying to sell something (iPod) else by using a music store? Articles can be found at Reuters, CNN and others."
amichalo points out that this is really a re-entry, writing "The service was previously launched last December. No explanation as to the re-launch (cough-poor-sales-cough) other than the addition of exclusive artists."
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
With $250B in sales, that's $1k for every man, woman, and child in the US. So for the $3k they should get from my family (and won't) some other family is giving them $6k this year to make up for me not giving them a dime. It's staggering how huge they are.
My sig is blank, I typed this by hand.
"Wow. 88 cents a song for [Clean] versions of pop tunes which I can't play on my iPod, my Linux box, or most MP3 players? Hang on while I rush out to buy the latest version of XP and a supported portable WMA device so I can save 11 cents a song! I'll be right back!
What I'm amazed at is that Walmart was able to beat enough price out of someone to lower the selling price by 12%. My guess is that the extra is coming out of the credit card companies who were probably told by Walmart that they better lower their charges or Wally World would start issueing their own credit cards that could be used at all Walmart locations, Sam's Clubs, and at the online store. Losing even a couple percent of Walmarts $250 Billion in revenue is enough to scare any corporation. I say this only because I doubt even Walmart could squeeze profit out of the record companies.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
If i want to save 12 cents i get to:
a) use a browser instead of the top class itunes store.
b) i get to use some handcuff microsoft monoply DRM schema instead of the aptly named "Fairplay" DRM from itunes.
c) I don't get to use their music with the number 1 (and coolest and functional) selling mp3 player in the world.
d) i can't buy music if i use a mac.
e) I get to add the to the walmart-fication of american which in my opinion is a mindset is destroying the quality of life in america?
I'd rather spend the 12 cents....
and BTW i have bought about 250 songs from the itunes music store....best music experience online...
Wal-Mart could make a killing if it offered kiosks in its stores where you could download and burn music. There are a lot of people who don't use computers, are ignorant about computers, who don't own burners, etc, but would LOVE to buy various CDs of their favorite songs.
And Wal-Mart could force the music industry to go along with the deal. If some label refused, Wal-Mart could simply refuse to stock their entire catalog. No label could survive being shutout by Wal-Mart!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Why would you pay sales tax? They're not selling you anything. For a fee, you have permission to use the IP in a restricted way. This fee is not a sale.
You can't even resell the download you pay for as it's forbidden in their terms of service! If I can't sell it, I don't own it. If I don't own it, they didn't sell it to me. If they didn't sell it to me, theres no sale to tax.
You don't pay sales tax on your apartment rent, do you?