We're talking about digital subscriptions. I am not advocating they make 99 cents a month the cost for the paper subscriptions.
The way to make money in the digital world is to offer something a few million people are willing to pay a buck for, not to find one person who is willing to pay a few million bucks. The marginal cost for each new subscriber is close to zero.
But what I don't understand is why not make the 99 the official weekly (or even monthly) price and advertise accordingly? I suspect they'd get more than enough additional subscribers to surpass in profits whatever they were making at the higher price/fewer subscribers model.
Games are worth whatever people will pay for them. So, no game *to you* might be worth more than $20 but for many people there are lots of games worth more than $20. The way companies can (and do) sell to as many people as possible for about what they are willing to pay goes something like this: Gamers who think the game is worth a lot get to play it first (and pay more), those in the middle get to play it a year later for about half the price and people who've never heard of it will get two years later when it goes into one of the steam value packs for $5 or less. The time periods may change but the basic concept is the same. Start out at a relatively high price and decrease the price over time. It's a pretty good system for everyone involved. If you want to play first and are willing to spend the money you can. If you want to save money just wait (you'll also save on computer hardware if you take this route).
I agree, sort of. Portal 2 costs $50. If you pre-ordered it was $45. If you pre-ordered with a friend it was $40.
I buy a new release high price game very rarely and Portal 2 was one I wanted to play enough, and show appreciation for Portal 1, that it was one of those rare games for me. But for the other 90% of my gaming needs, living more than a year in the gaming past has saved me a ton of money. More accurately, I spend about the same amount (probably more) but get many more games to play. The patience game pays off.
From the The University of Tennessee Space Institute: "Although laser ignition offers advantages for most combustion sources, its greatest potential exists for jet-engine gas-turbine combustors."
Here's the explanation: It takes time for these things to change. Also, most of the cost of the book isn't in the actual copy of the book (in either format).
Ordinarily the publisher sends out review copies to book reviewers, they schedule readings and signings with booksellers, they arrange displays or promotions in the bookstores, radio interviews, etc. All of those drive interest in a book, and convince the booksellers to order more.
Couldn't the author or a good assistant do this a lot cheaper?
But a couple hundred employees really appreciated that I had taken the time and effort and come, and the feeling of being taken seriously is an important motivator.
I second this. I've had to travel before when there were no technical reasons for doing so just to make the customer feel like they were being taken care of.
Would you use open source software if it meant you'd have to make your own source open? Of course not. That's the problem I alluded to in my original reply.
Red Hat makes its money from support contracts. I already said that was a niche market exception. If you were a software developer would you sell software you spent years to create to a person for $30 if that person could turn around and legally give copies away to the rest of the world for free?
Honestly, copyleft is just as bad as any other kind of copyright. You're basically ensuring other software writers can't make a profit on improving the program itself.
Here's how it should be done... and this can work without any kind of copyright protection whatsoever. You write a program and sell as many copies as people will buy. Keep the source code a trade secret. When sales drop and you no longer feel like supporting it you release the code base to the public domain. Someone else comes along and improves that and makes a better program, sells it without releasing source right away, makes money and then, once they feel they've gotten what they can out of it, releases *that* source to the public domain so the next person or group can take over. Right now, most commercial software firms and even individuals won't touch copyleft because there's no way to make money from the software itself if you give away the source that can be distributed freely (exceptions are support contracts, specialized hardware and single customer... but those are very narrow niche cases).
Amazon isn't reselling anything. They have the right to sell the mp3 which was already negotiated. You have no say whether or not they can sell storage.
Business "models" don't make money. Selling stuff makes money. If they sell more mp3s because of this then they win. But guess what? If they sell more mp3s the record companies also win. The recording industry is in no way harmed by this.
But Amazon makes real money when you stream from their cloud.
This is bullshit. Amazon loses money when you stream from their cloud. They make money when they sell you music and they make money when they sell you additional storage. But actually storing and streaming cost money.
Wikipedia: "Broadcasting is the distribution of audio and video content to a dispersed audience via radio, television, or other. Receiving parties may include the general public or a relatively large subset of thereof."
Even with all of your points at the very least it acts as free and easy backup and retrieval of 5GB worth of music files. That's nothing to complain about.
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We're talking about digital subscriptions. I am not advocating they make 99 cents a month the cost for the paper subscriptions.
The way to make money in the digital world is to offer something a few million people are willing to pay a buck for, not to find one person who is willing to pay a few million bucks. The marginal cost for each new subscriber is close to zero.
But what I don't understand is why not make the 99 the official weekly (or even monthly) price and advertise accordingly? I suspect they'd get more than enough additional subscribers to surpass in profits whatever they were making at the higher price/fewer subscribers model.
Games are worth whatever people will pay for them. So, no game *to you* might be worth more than $20 but for many people there are lots of games worth more than $20. The way companies can (and do) sell to as many people as possible for about what they are willing to pay goes something like this: Gamers who think the game is worth a lot get to play it first (and pay more), those in the middle get to play it a year later for about half the price and people who've never heard of it will get two years later when it goes into one of the steam value packs for $5 or less. The time periods may change but the basic concept is the same. Start out at a relatively high price and decrease the price over time. It's a pretty good system for everyone involved. If you want to play first and are willing to spend the money you can. If you want to save money just wait (you'll also save on computer hardware if you take this route).
This is BS. Valve does more marketing than any other gaming company I can think of via their steam service.
I agree, sort of. Portal 2 costs $50. If you pre-ordered it was $45. If you pre-ordered with a friend it was $40.
I buy a new release high price game very rarely and Portal 2 was one I wanted to play enough, and show appreciation for Portal 1, that it was one of those rare games for me. But for the other 90% of my gaming needs, living more than a year in the gaming past has saved me a ton of money. More accurately, I spend about the same amount (probably more) but get many more games to play. The patience game pays off.
From the The University of Tennessee Space Institute:
"Although laser ignition offers advantages for most combustion sources, its greatest potential exists for jet-engine gas-turbine combustors."
http://cla.utsi.edu/Research/Fluid_Physics/Laser_Induced_Ignition.htm
Eventually the old people will die off or be shipped to retirement homes. Then it will be your turn to call 30 somethings kids.
Here's the explanation: It takes time for these things to change. Also, most of the cost of the book isn't in the actual copy of the book (in either format).
Not all ebooks are the same price. Look around. Also, libraries are starting to lend ebooks.
Couldn't the author or a good assistant do this a lot cheaper?
I don't believe you can physically turn a dead tree book page 10x faster than an ebook can display a new e-ink page.
I've resisted so far as well. Thankfully at least a couple of vendors offer DRM free versions of ebooks like Baen.
What's the environmental impact of constructing a physical library? Of the transportation used to go there? Electricity usage? Other infrastructure?
But a couple hundred employees really appreciated that I had taken the time and effort and come, and the feeling of being taken seriously is an important motivator.
I second this. I've had to travel before when there were no technical reasons for doing so just to make the customer feel like they were being taken care of.
If only there were a machine capable of storing all of that tax data.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBNOXYlYswA
Would you use open source software if it meant you'd have to make your own source open? Of course not. That's the problem I alluded to in my original reply.
Red Hat makes its money from support contracts. I already said that was a niche market exception. If you were a software developer would you sell software you spent years to create to a person for $30 if that person could turn around and legally give copies away to the rest of the world for free?
Honestly, copyleft is just as bad as any other kind of copyright. You're basically ensuring other software writers can't make a profit on improving the program itself.
Here's how it should be done... and this can work without any kind of copyright protection whatsoever. You write a program and sell as many copies as people will buy. Keep the source code a trade secret. When sales drop and you no longer feel like supporting it you release the code base to the public domain. Someone else comes along and improves that and makes a better program, sells it without releasing source right away, makes money and then, once they feel they've gotten what they can out of it, releases *that* source to the public domain so the next person or group can take over. Right now, most commercial software firms and even individuals won't touch copyleft because there's no way to make money from the software itself if you give away the source that can be distributed freely (exceptions are support contracts, specialized hardware and single customer... but those are very narrow niche cases).
You say this but that doesn't make it true.
Amazon isn't reselling anything. They have the right to sell the mp3 which was already negotiated. You have no say whether or not they can sell storage.
Business "models" don't make money. Selling stuff makes money. If they sell more mp3s because of this then they win. But guess what? If they sell more mp3s the record companies also win. The recording industry is in no way harmed by this.
But Amazon makes real money when you stream from their cloud.
This is bullshit. Amazon loses money when you stream from their cloud. They make money when they sell you music and they make money when they sell you additional storage. But actually storing and streaming cost money.
This is not broadcasting.
Wikipedia: "Broadcasting is the distribution of audio and video content to a dispersed audience via radio, television, or other. Receiving parties may include the general public or a relatively large subset of thereof."
Music - WTF?
Even with all of your points at the very least it acts as free and easy backup and retrieval of 5GB worth of music files. That's nothing to complain about.