iTunes Sales 'Collapsing'

Alien54 writes to tell us The Register is reporting that based on reported revenues this year iTunes sales are plummetting. From the article: "Secretive Apple doesn't break out revenues from iTunes, but Forrester conducted an analysis of credit card transactions over a 27-month period. And this year's numbers aren't good. While the iTunes service saw healthy growth for much of the period, since January the monthly revenue has fallen by 65 per cent, with the average transaction size falling 17 per cent. The previous spring's rebound wasn't repeated this year."

Comments

Re:Tell ya what Apple...

[supasam]

Yeah, man, burn those bad boys to 8 track and the boogey man can NEVER get you!! By the way, if you're "a full time college student working a full time job," and you want an Ipod but can't afford one, you're doing SOMETHING wrong. Maybe you need to skip then bag today and invest in a shuffle. Or get a loan, it's not going to kill you. In fact, get a loan so you don't have to work a full time job. Thats what loans are for. You can pay it back, don't worry, you're not getting an english degree, are you?

Re:Must just be the majors. The indies are thrivin

[Duds]

Anybody who makes an album of consistently good music, I'd rather hunt down a used CD and rip it to a Lossless file, but if I only want one or two songs from a particular artist ever, and I'm not too fussy about hi-fi sound, then $1 per song is a good deal.

Which is actually quite ironic.

Because in that scenario, the artist that makes a good album gets 0c from you, whereas the artist who makes a couple of good songs gets $2.

Here's the reasons...

[pandrijeczko]

1. Low quality product - the stuff that's played on mainstream radio stations and music video TV channels is recycled rubbish. Very few current popular artists write their own songs anymore, they're just there to look good miming on a video while record company backroom songwriters churn out endless, mindless, formulaic tunes. The *real* artists are either those who have spent many years making records without selling their asses to Sony or BMG, or the lesser known artists signed to independent labels or selling their own recordings. Sorry, but there's only so much "R 'n' B" or "emo" punk bands anyone can take, let alone a fashion-following teenager.

2. DRM - the good thing here is that, in my opinion, "Joe Bloke" is starting to get the message about the evils of DRM, we have Sony's big f*ck up to thank for a that. People have traditionally "shared" their music and movies with friends & whilst I do not in any way support illegal downloads, lending CDs and DVDs to friends is something people have always done. Anything the media companies do to restrict that activity will fail.

3. Price - check out online retailers, even the music section of the local supermarket & you'll find CDs that you can buy cheaper than downloading all of the tracks from iTunes. Like HMV & Virgin, iTunes has got away for far too long selling overpriced products, all three of them are now suffering as a result - and good riddance to bad rubbish.