Despite material costs being below $1.50, it's still the case that record companies make pretty thin margins on CD sales relative to margins in other industries. I know this will probably boggle many people who read this, but there's a huge gulf between BOM cost and cost of sale. All of the record companies' expenses (salaries, promotions, overhead, etc. etc.) must come out of the sale of that CD. The biggest piece of the pie, believe it or not, is usually the royalties.
While that might be true, I feel it's unfortunate that consumers are bearing the blunt of the bloat that exists in the record industry. It seems to me as if record industry executives are getting wealthy off of content that they, frankly, do not create. Having read about how the industry actually works, it strikes me as a system where everyone's taking a cut away from the artists, leaving the consumer to suffer due to higher prices. Is it unreasonable to hope that the industry can find a business model where artists can make more while consumers lose less?
As a senior at a major university, I've been using facebook since '04, and I have to say that it's been a pretty important part of the lives of 95% of the students here and at other major universities for a long time. It's been great for keeping in contact with classmates from high school and in other schools. Since we (college students) developed have seen facebook grow and mature for a few years, it's come as sort of a shock to me that there's a debate about facebook's viability at all.
I can't speak to facebook's staying power among the general public. In fact, though I use the site at least a few times per week, I only recently became aware that it was open to the general public. I can say, though, that it's played a fairly important part of our college lives. I've always just assumed that everyone would keep their accounts in order to help stay in contact with the numerous friends and acquaintances we've made over the past few years. For us (the majority of those pursuing undergraduate education in the US), it's definitely not a "fad."
I agree with you--that's the beauty of how our free market works. However, the thing about monopolies is that they break some of the free market rules. With music for instance, I don't think it's fair that simply because one group controls the source, we listen to it their way--or not at all.
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First things first--there's also a $50M prize out for building a spacecraft that can take 5 people into orbit.
As a senior at a major university, I've been using facebook since '04, and I have to say that it's been a pretty important part of the lives of 95% of the students here and at other major universities for a long time. It's been great for keeping in contact with classmates from high school and in other schools. Since we (college students) developed have seen facebook grow and mature for a few years, it's come as sort of a shock to me that there's a debate about facebook's viability at all. I can't speak to facebook's staying power among the general public. In fact, though I use the site at least a few times per week, I only recently became aware that it was open to the general public. I can say, though, that it's played a fairly important part of our college lives. I've always just assumed that everyone would keep their accounts in order to help stay in contact with the numerous friends and acquaintances we've made over the past few years. For us (the majority of those pursuing undergraduate education in the US), it's definitely not a "fad."
Another reason he's not the world's first man-made chimera is because there's already been one, even going by the interspecies definition: the geep.
Coming next: An electrode that makes you an unquestioning victim of the political machine. Oh wait, we've already got mainstream media.
I agree with you--that's the beauty of how our free market works. However, the thing about monopolies is that they break some of the free market rules. With music for instance, I don't think it's fair that simply because one group controls the source, we listen to it their way--or not at all.