So, the problem with this idea of going head-to-head with the recording industry is that the biggest challenge(nowadays) facing an artist is not recording, not production, and not distribution, it's advertising. Let's face it - most of us "find" new music by hearing it on the radio or in some other media (e.g. a movie), at a bar, or from a friend. All of those *except* the friend are pretty much the product of marketing (directly in the form of advertising or indirectly in the form of contacts and influence).
I remember hearing (no idea how accurate, but it makes sense) that something like 10 CDs are released every day in the US (never mind how much is released only digitally). The obstacle facing the indie artist is not how to make the music and not how to get it to a fan (paying or otherwise) but how to get people to pay attention. This is the biggest thing that MySpace (personally, I hate it and it's probably not necessary to link to) and outfits like CDBaby http://www.cdbaby.com/ have done for musicians: given fans an easy way to peruse music and find new artists in an enjoyable fashion.
Hopefully, this will have a similar effect. However, any meaningful discussion about kicking the recording industry in it's posterior side ought to focus on how this makes it easy for new fans to connect with an artist (mostly), and not just how easy or free it makes getting said music to said fan.
Back in the day, I worked for a "big video store" (putting myself through school) - this was strictly VHS days. For most movies, think hard... ever notice they hit the rental shelves before you could buy it at Target or Wal-Mart? That's because of the "exorbitant amount for their films" (and $100 is about right). This is how the studios ensured they made a good chunk of cash off of VHS even though there was a lot of rental (and never mind that eventually the big rental houses entered into revenue sharing agreements). Once the fever died down, the price would drop to a "sell-through" price.
Exceptions were made, usually around family films and such. However, it did make it interesting when someone wrecked a brand-new tape, and you had to explain why you needed to charge them $104 to replace...
The risks of not vaccinating children far outweigh even the real risks of the vaccine. Multiple-vaccine shots don't "overstimulate" the immune system. Not vaccinating your children can expose populations to previously squelched or heartier strains of disease. http://www.healthcentral.com/ency/408/002024.html http://www.boystownpediatrics.org/HealthTips/immunization.asp http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/285/12/1573 (warning, login needed)
True, autism rates have been rising over the years. However, it's unclear how much of this is really "new" or incremental, and how much is due to attention paid to it and more advanced diagnosis mechanisms. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism
. There are many, less nefarious but more plausible explanations.
The vaccine hysteria is simply not supported by any real evidence. To be honest, most mothers of autistic children also probably ate carrots during pregnancy or (more recently) used their wireless phones. That doesn't mean either caused the autism. I realize your family tragedies are tied closely with significant, stand-out events. Augment this with pseudo-scientific fear-mongering about vaccines, and I can see why you might feel this way. However, thoughts and beliefs simply don't equal fact - no matter what you (or anyone), well, believes.
This doesn't mean you're an "indoctrinated idiot" - by your own admission, you're fairly biased based upon personal experience. I might be afraid to get back on a roller-coaster if I survived a horrible accident (or lost a close family member in one). However, I (would like to think that I) would not go so far as to suggest that my personal experience and bias ought to be construed as factual, even if it were in line with a bunch of people who were for the closing of amusement parks and dismantling of all roller-coasters.
Not really; you own it. Now, if you want them to do digital distro also, you have to sometimes agree to more restrictive terms, if the digital distro has more restrictive licensing. The big controversy of a few years ago was the underground American Idol (I forget exactly what it was called) and some of the viral sharing sites. They often had additional terms that you gave up some form of rights related to their distribution method.
CDBaby always pointed these things out; in the case of the American Idol spin-off, the backlash from what they pointed out caused the promoters to change their terms. CDBaby has always been extremely fair and upfront about things.
For independent distribution, it's not cheap but they're on the up-and-up and very worth the cost. They really are all about the music and the artist first.
Plus, many software warranties expressly disclaim any implied warranty by stating the software is provided "AS-IS" (this includes the popular GNU open source licenses). Disclaimers must be "conspicuous in the contract".
Again, I don't know if Apple expressly disclaims an implied warranty, but it is doubtful, since they do provide a warranty of some sort.
I'm certainly no attorney, but I don't believe that your statement about "NO obligation to offer ANY technical support..."
There is such a thing as an implied warranty http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implied_warranty, and that doesn't just refer to DOA. When sold something retail, you have a reasonable expectation for fitness of purpose. It seems a pretty gray area to me if the iPhone has a fitness-of-purpose to run software or just to run the software Apple installs.
Regardless, I don't think it's as simplistic as "you did this, so we don't have to be responsible for rendering the device inoperable because you did something we don't like". Add into that the fact that Apple did this, ostensibly, to prevent this kind of behavior - the non-working status is intentional, not accidental.
Granted, it would suck to have your cash stolen by your business manager (if that's what happened), but the implication in your post is that he hasn't become rich. Quite frankly, he has. Sure, he's not as rich as some, but even at the lowest figure quoted in the above he's much better off than most folks:
http://www.fool.com/personal-finance/retirement/2007/05/30/youre-ahead-of-41-million-americans.aspx
I also recall reading/hearing somewhere that having a true net worth in excess of $500 million US put you in the top 5% world-wide for net worth, but I cannot find the stat and don't know if it is true.
I beg to differ on your cost analysis, at least to a point.
The US has some of the lowest cost-per-minute in the world. http://washingtontimes.com/article/20070902/COMMEN TARY/109020022 . According to the article, only Hong Kong is cheaper, and that jives with my personal knowledge (almost 10 years in the wireless telecom industry). What you're comparing is one particular carrier's US prepaid service to China's pre-paid. The apples-to-oranges here is that in China, pre-paid is the norm; here in the US, post-paid is. If you take the US's lowest cost per minute (which is less than the average of $.07 quoted in the article) and compare it to China's, you'd find them much closer. Likewise, if you compare the highest to the highest... well, you get my point. If you want to paint an accurate comparison, you should point out that the US' cost for prepaid is much greater than most other countries' cost for prepaid (which is certainly very true).
Yes, part of the reason costs are lower for post-paid here is because of contracts, but that doesn't mean it's not cheaper. Oh, and that mobile phone you purchase here for less than a hundred bucks costs two or three times as much for comparable elsewhere. Just visit your favorite manufacturer and compare prices on the same/similar models as to what the carriers offer here with a contract. The contract agreement allows the carrier to buy-down the cost of the hardware to below the cost (e.g. the carrier subsidises the cost for you)
That being said, the contract thing does suck, but if you're going to make the argument that the total cost of ownership for a mobile in the US is always completely higher than elsewhere, well, you're simply incorrect. Prices here are not "sky-high" compared to the rest of the world. As always, one can cherry-pick examples in either direction, but when one looks at typical/average, the US actually comes in pretty good.
Hmmm... I might liken it to a "reporter covering Congressional sessions who doesn't understand English", much in the way my dogs don't understand English. Sure, some combinations of sounds are succeeded by certain events ("who wants a SNACK? who wants to go on a WALK?") and if I say something that sounds mean or loud they might get scared or apprehensive... just in the way "scientific journalists" get excited when something sounds scientific and scary (or like it might burn fat or cause cancer).
They don't really understand what's being said, just that it sounds relevant and somewhat exciting to their universe... sigh... it's the world we live in, and sometimes I think my dogs understand it better.
PAD is an acronym for Portable Application Description. It is a system that helps authors provide product descriptions and related information to online sources in a standardized manner, and using a standard database format. This allows webmasters and program librarians to automate their submission processing and listings creation. PAD saves time for both authors and webmasters.
I cannot speak for IBM per se, but my corporate experience (both personal, and watching those around me) is that often severance packages are tightly tied to "continuing to perform your duties as assigned", which (at that point) means: show up, play nice, and train your replacement. If you don't, not only are you out of a job (and probably earlier than you thought), you don't get your severance pay.
No to be rude - and you're correct in your premise - but that is typically called (market) segmentation in the industry, and not price optimization (I have some background in telecom marketing segmentation). The idea that one can segment their customer base and target product marketing efforts (either by price, features, or what advertising is focused on) is a little different than the article, which talks about looking at behavior within a larger set (the entire "chain") are large demographic subset (all of Dallas), and making a strategy out of existing full-set behavior. One could argue that charging a different price in Dallas versus Boston is segmentation, but it misses to definition a bit and falls more accurately into the price optimization category.
I just wanted to point out they're two different (but related) interesting topics.
Part (most) of what distinguishes identical frequencies as being different sounds (think A played on both piano and violin) is the harmonics. Representing frequencies above 20kHz allows the subtle harmonics these frequencies can create to affect the frequencies we can hear, resulting in a more true, accurate, "real"-sounding sound. Analog recording equipment picks this up naturally, of course - digitally, one has to attempt to account for it.
Does this mean everyone has a job? Not necessarily; one has to examine geography, skill, and working habits. Is it like the dot-con (poor spelling pun intentional) boom, where you could spit and get an offer for 50% more than you were making currently, even if you knew nothing? No.
Have the last two places I've worked had trouble finding qualified applicants who can actually produce production-quality code product on a schedule? Yes. Have they had trouble filling roles? Yes. Are both reasonable places to work, with decent hours, great pay, interesting work, and wonderful benefits? Yes. (Since someone will wonder, I left one because I wanted to move to another city).
Am I fortunate? Yes. Am I unique? No.
Not sure where you're getting your information - and I'm sure it's valid for you - but the endless dour outlook just because things aren't like they were during the 90's doesn't mean things are bad.
My personal experience is that the people who whine most about their circumstance are often the ones most unwilling to do anything to change or fix it. I was stuck for a number of years in what I decided was a dead-end marketing career. I got off my posterior side and went back to school, got a CS degree, and hit the pavement. If IT is for you, continue learning and growing - perhaps learn how to be a great employee in addition to a great IT person. If it isn't for you, expand your skills and leave. Whining brings everyone down.
Actually, with all due respect, you aren't 100% correct.
ALL of the US wireless carriers (that aren't 100% prepaid) buy down the cost of the wireless device in exchange for a contract... it's a loss leader. Even at "full" price, they're not making any money on the phone (I'm talking about the carrier, not the manufacturer).
In order to entice people to pay that much for an iPhone, it WOULD make economic sense (if the desire for the phone wasn't enough to drive new customers) to offer NEW customers a certain amount of free service if they buy the phone AND AGREE TO A SERVICE AGREEMENT.
For the customer, the net is identical to if they buy down the cost of the phone and the customer pays the full service price for the contract term. For Cingular, they get to get market share away from other carriers and/or add new "virgin" lines of service. For Apple, they don't have to deal with discounted hardware prices resulting in price comparison with other devices.
The only real downside is the whole contract thing, but that is another discussion.
You are correct that price points are calculated on what people are willing to pay; but cost-of-entry is a big determinant (in the US) in people deciding who to shop with when they add/move/start wireless service. If you don't believe me, check out device costs in nations that don't use the service contract model. That $99 device is going to be ~$250 in Japan or Europe.
So, but what you forget is that many companies now roll bonus and similar items into total compensation. It's not a "bonus" if, in practicality, you're correctly expecting to get it, and "it" is of a certain size/amount. True, an actual bonus should not be counted on, but when it's really some form of periodic lump-sum compensation that gets arbitrarily yanked or changed, it's not enough to say "well you shouldn't count on it".
Slashdot Mirror
Yup.
So, the problem with this idea of going head-to-head with the recording industry is that the biggest challenge(nowadays) facing an artist is not recording, not production, and not distribution, it's advertising. Let's face it - most of us "find" new music by hearing it on the radio or in some other media (e.g. a movie), at a bar, or from a friend. All of those *except* the friend are pretty much the product of marketing (directly in the form of advertising or indirectly in the form of contacts and influence).
I remember hearing (no idea how accurate, but it makes sense) that something like 10 CDs are released every day in the US (never mind how much is released only digitally). The obstacle facing the indie artist is not how to make the music and not how to get it to a fan (paying or otherwise) but how to get people to pay attention. This is the biggest thing that MySpace (personally, I hate it and it's probably not necessary to link to) and outfits like CDBaby http://www.cdbaby.com/ have done for musicians: given fans an easy way to peruse music and find new artists in an enjoyable fashion.
Hopefully, this will have a similar effect. However, any meaningful discussion about kicking the recording industry in it's posterior side ought to focus on how this makes it easy for new fans to connect with an artist (mostly), and not just how easy or free it makes getting said music to said fan.
Offtopic, but here it goes...
Back in the day, I worked for a "big video store" (putting myself through school) - this was strictly VHS days. For most movies, think hard... ever notice they hit the rental shelves before you could buy it at Target or Wal-Mart? That's because of the "exorbitant amount for their films" (and $100 is about right). This is how the studios ensured they made a good chunk of cash off of VHS even though there was a lot of rental (and never mind that eventually the big rental houses entered into revenue sharing agreements). Once the fever died down, the price would drop to a "sell-through" price.
Exceptions were made, usually around family films and such. However, it did make it interesting when someone wrecked a brand-new tape, and you had to explain why you needed to charge them $104 to replace...
Advice for dealing with women, on Slashdot, quoted from a Spice Girls song?
I'm going back to work. . .
I'm sorry for your family heartache.
I recognize Wikipedia is not definitive, but everything linked below has references, so it allows these to be tied up with a bow quite nicely.
However, correlation is not causation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_causation. Assuming you're from the US or Europe, Thimerosal is not used in vaccines except for influenza (which isn't required) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thimerosal. In addition, the CDC, FDA, and WHO categorically reject any relationship between Thimerosal and autism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomersal_controversy. The CDC, Institute of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences,and the UK National Health Service have determined no link between MMR and autism.
The risks of not vaccinating children far outweigh even the real risks of the vaccine. Multiple-vaccine shots don't "overstimulate" the immune system. Not vaccinating your children can expose populations to previously squelched or heartier strains of disease. http://www.healthcentral.com/ency/408/002024.html
http://www.boystownpediatrics.org/HealthTips/immunization.asp
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/285/12/1573 (warning, login needed)
True, autism rates have been rising over the years. However, it's unclear how much of this is really "new" or incremental, and how much is due to attention paid to it and more advanced diagnosis mechanisms. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism
. There are many, less nefarious but more plausible explanations. The vaccine hysteria is simply not supported by any real evidence. To be honest, most mothers of autistic children also probably ate carrots during pregnancy or (more recently) used their wireless phones. That doesn't mean either caused the autism. I realize your family tragedies are tied closely with significant, stand-out events. Augment this with pseudo-scientific fear-mongering about vaccines, and I can see why you might feel this way. However, thoughts and beliefs simply don't equal fact - no matter what you (or anyone), well, believes.
This doesn't mean you're an "indoctrinated idiot" - by your own admission, you're fairly biased based upon personal experience. I might be afraid to get back on a roller-coaster if I survived a horrible accident (or lost a close family member in one). However, I (would like to think that I) would not go so far as to suggest that my personal experience and bias ought to be construed as factual, even if it were in line with a bunch of people who were for the closing of amusement parks and dismantling of all roller-coasters.
Not really; you own it. Now, if you want them to do digital distro also, you have to sometimes agree to more restrictive terms, if the digital distro has more restrictive licensing. The big controversy of a few years ago was the underground American Idol (I forget exactly what it was called) and some of the viral sharing sites. They often had additional terms that you gave up some form of rights related to their distribution method.
CDBaby always pointed these things out; in the case of the American Idol spin-off, the backlash from what they pointed out caused the promoters to change their terms. CDBaby has always been extremely fair and upfront about things.
For independent distribution, it's not cheap but they're on the up-and-up and very worth the cost. They really are all about the music and the artist first.
Bingo.
Plus, many software warranties expressly disclaim any implied warranty by stating the software is provided "AS-IS" (this includes the popular GNU open source licenses). Disclaimers must be "conspicuous in the contract".
Again, I don't know if Apple expressly disclaims an implied warranty, but it is doubtful, since they do provide a warranty of some sort.
I'm certainly no attorney, but I don't believe that your statement about "NO obligation to offer ANY technical support..." There is such a thing as an implied warranty http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implied_warranty, and that doesn't just refer to DOA. When sold something retail, you have a reasonable expectation for fitness of purpose. It seems a pretty gray area to me if the iPhone has a fitness-of-purpose to run software or just to run the software Apple installs. Regardless, I don't think it's as simplistic as "you did this, so we don't have to be responsible for rendering the device inoperable because you did something we don't like". Add into that the fact that Apple did this, ostensibly, to prevent this kind of behavior - the non-working status is intentional, not accidental.
Off topic, but since you brought it up....
If he's not "very rich" or "rich", well, it's not because of a cash-flow problem:
http://www.ninwiki.com/Trent_Reznor
http://www.killoggs.com/news/?news=2651
Granted, it would suck to have your cash stolen by your business manager (if that's what happened), but the implication in your post is that he hasn't become rich. Quite frankly, he has. Sure, he's not as rich as some, but even at the lowest figure quoted in the above he's much better off than most folks: http://www.fool.com/personal-finance/retirement/2007/05/30/youre-ahead-of-41-million-americans.aspx
I also recall reading/hearing somewhere that having a true net worth in excess of $500 million US put you in the top 5% world-wide for net worth, but I cannot find the stat and don't know if it is true.
Either way, he's not a starving artist.
You do bring up a good point about the China knock-offs being very inexpensive, and often of high quality http://www.popsci.com/popsci/technology/e7e48a137b 144110vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html . So, perhaps China vs US is just not a typical comparison, huh?
It's cool that you're getting those experiences; I'm very jealous!
I beg to differ on your cost analysis, at least to a point.
N TARY/109020022 . According to the article, only Hong Kong is cheaper, and that jives with my personal knowledge (almost 10 years in the wireless telecom industry). What you're comparing is one particular carrier's US prepaid service to China's pre-paid. The apples-to-oranges here is that in China, pre-paid is the norm; here in the US, post-paid is. If you take the US's lowest cost per minute (which is less than the average of $.07 quoted in the article) and compare it to China's, you'd find them much closer. Likewise, if you compare the highest to the highest... well, you get my point. If you want to paint an accurate comparison, you should point out that the US' cost for prepaid is much greater than most other countries' cost for prepaid (which is certainly very true).
The US has some of the lowest cost-per-minute in the world. http://washingtontimes.com/article/20070902/COMME
Yes, part of the reason costs are lower for post-paid here is because of contracts, but that doesn't mean it's not cheaper. Oh, and that mobile phone you purchase here for less than a hundred bucks costs two or three times as much for comparable elsewhere. Just visit your favorite manufacturer and compare prices on the same/similar models as to what the carriers offer here with a contract. The contract agreement allows the carrier to buy-down the cost of the hardware to below the cost (e.g. the carrier subsidises the cost for you)
That being said, the contract thing does suck, but if you're going to make the argument that the total cost of ownership for a mobile in the US is always completely higher than elsewhere, well, you're simply incorrect. Prices here are not "sky-high" compared to the rest of the world. As always, one can cherry-pick examples in either direction, but when one looks at typical/average, the US actually comes in pretty good.
Hmmm... I might liken it to a "reporter covering Congressional sessions who doesn't understand English", much in the way my dogs don't understand English. Sure, some combinations of sounds are succeeded by certain events ("who wants a SNACK? who wants to go on a WALK?") and if I say something that sounds mean or loud they might get scared or apprehensive... just in the way "scientific journalists" get excited when something sounds scientific and scary (or like it might burn fat or cause cancer).
They don't really understand what's being said, just that it sounds relevant and somewhat exciting to their universe... sigh... it's the world we live in, and sometimes I think my dogs understand it better.
To be picky and argumentative, "profits were entirely inline with expectations" != no financial impact.
If, indeed, it was not even quantified does not mean that there wasn't one (and, conversely, conviction doesn't exactly mean that there was).
I guess that I'm in the mood to mince the hairs of the hair-mincers today.
What is PAD?
PAD is an acronym for Portable Application Description. It is a system that helps authors provide product descriptions and related information to online sources in a standardized manner, and using a standard database format. This allows webmasters and program librarians to automate their submission processing and listings creation. PAD saves time for both authors and webmasters.
http://submit-everywhere.com/faq.html about 3/4 down the FAQ page.
I cannot speak for IBM per se, but my corporate experience (both personal, and watching those around me) is that often severance packages are tightly tied to "continuing to perform your duties as assigned", which (at that point) means: show up, play nice, and train your replacement. If you don't, not only are you out of a job (and probably earlier than you thought), you don't get your severance pay.
No to be rude - and you're correct in your premise - but that is typically called (market) segmentation in the industry, and not price optimization (I have some background in telecom marketing segmentation). The idea that one can segment their customer base and target product marketing efforts (either by price, features, or what advertising is focused on) is a little different than the article, which talks about looking at behavior within a larger set (the entire "chain") are large demographic subset (all of Dallas), and making a strategy out of existing full-set behavior. One could argue that charging a different price in Dallas versus Boston is segmentation, but it misses to definition a bit and falls more accurately into the price optimization category.
I just wanted to point out they're two different (but related) interesting topics.
Part (most) of what distinguishes identical frequencies as being different sounds (think A played on both piano and violin) is the harmonics. Representing frequencies above 20kHz allows the subtle harmonics these frequencies can create to affect the frequencies we can hear, resulting in a more true, accurate, "real"-sounding sound. Analog recording equipment picks this up naturally, of course - digitally, one has to attempt to account for it.
Bitter indeed.
s p , and some of them are considered to be some of the best jobs to be had (according to Money Magazine and Salary.com http://news.com.com/2061-11199_3-6060607.html).
Tech-related jobs are growing incredibly fast http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2020986,00.a
Does this mean everyone has a job? Not necessarily; one has to examine geography, skill, and working habits. Is it like the dot-con (poor spelling pun intentional) boom, where you could spit and get an offer for 50% more than you were making currently, even if you knew nothing? No.
Have the last two places I've worked had trouble finding qualified applicants who can actually produce production-quality code product on a schedule? Yes. Have they had trouble filling roles? Yes. Are both reasonable places to work, with decent hours, great pay, interesting work, and wonderful benefits? Yes. (Since someone will wonder, I left one because I wanted to move to another city).
Am I fortunate? Yes. Am I unique? No.
Not sure where you're getting your information - and I'm sure it's valid for you - but the endless dour outlook just because things aren't like they were during the 90's doesn't mean things are bad.
My personal experience is that the people who whine most about their circumstance are often the ones most unwilling to do anything to change or fix it. I was stuck for a number of years in what I decided was a dead-end marketing career. I got off my posterior side and went back to school, got a CS degree, and hit the pavement. If IT is for you, continue learning and growing - perhaps learn how to be a great employee in addition to a great IT person. If it isn't for you, expand your skills and leave. Whining brings everyone down.
Actually, with all due respect, you aren't 100% correct. ALL of the US wireless carriers (that aren't 100% prepaid) buy down the cost of the wireless device in exchange for a contract... it's a loss leader. Even at "full" price, they're not making any money on the phone (I'm talking about the carrier, not the manufacturer). In order to entice people to pay that much for an iPhone, it WOULD make economic sense (if the desire for the phone wasn't enough to drive new customers) to offer NEW customers a certain amount of free service if they buy the phone AND AGREE TO A SERVICE AGREEMENT. For the customer, the net is identical to if they buy down the cost of the phone and the customer pays the full service price for the contract term. For Cingular, they get to get market share away from other carriers and/or add new "virgin" lines of service. For Apple, they don't have to deal with discounted hardware prices resulting in price comparison with other devices. The only real downside is the whole contract thing, but that is another discussion. You are correct that price points are calculated on what people are willing to pay; but cost-of-entry is a big determinant (in the US) in people deciding who to shop with when they add/move/start wireless service. If you don't believe me, check out device costs in nations that don't use the service contract model. That $99 device is going to be ~$250 in Japan or Europe.
So, but what you forget is that many companies now roll bonus and similar items into total compensation. It's not a "bonus" if, in practicality, you're correctly expecting to get it, and "it" is of a certain size/amount. True, an actual bonus should not be counted on, but when it's really some form of periodic lump-sum compensation that gets arbitrarily yanked or changed, it's not enough to say "well you shouldn't count on it".