I am sure the conversations between Apple and Music EXECs where something along these lines:
Execs: You need to allow a flexible pricing model where more popular stuff costs more so we can all make more money
Apple: No we don't.99 is working just fine, its an excellent price point sure the less popular stuff we are probably way over charging for, but its made up for by the fact we undercharge for the more popular stuff so money gets made on volume...you can look at it the other way too and the model looks just as good.
Execs: We don't care about the less popular stuff from the bands with actual talent, never did, those acts could drop off the face of the earth for all we care, charge whatever you want for that stuff, here is a list of the artists we care about and have the payola going to promote them even though we all know they suck, oh wait crap *sleep* When I snap my fingers you will akwake and not remember I ever mentioned anything about payola *snap*
Apple: huh, wa...oh yeah, no we are sticking with.99 its an effective sweet spot price point, we will stick with that, besides we control 85% of the online distorbution model we must be doing something right.
Execs: We'll stop selling our stuff through iTunes, then where will you be?
Apple: Eh, whatever you'll be back...we control 85% of the market and sell the most popular player.
Execs: Oh yeah we wanted to talk to you about that we want a cut of the iPod hardware sales too, its only fair.
Apple: Na, You don't seem to understand you need us as I've pointed out we basically own this market yes you make the widget we are the only effective way of getting the widget to the customer
Execs: We'll take our toys and go home, without the music you have no store....
Apple: Without our STORE you have NO STORE
Execs: so there see we need each other so lets talk about that pricing
Apple: no really you don't seem to understand.99 is what the consumer will pay, they are tired of $18 for a CD with two good songs on it, they would rather pay $1.98 to get those two good songs, or $18 to get 18 good songs. Your trying to achive price parity we see it you want the same cash for that CD without selling the end user the physical media. Nice cost savings for you, no raw materials cost, no shipping, no brick and mortar, You must really think those users are idiots.
Execs: (TO self) Oh shit they are on to us.
Apple: No really I think we are going to stick with.99
Execs: I think you don't understand, we really are going to take our ball and go home, ALL of us where will your store be if none of us provide the music to sell in it. NONE. Other stores will work with us on it, sure the players they support are not as good, the store isn't the best model, but hell they will charge whatever we tell them to charge just to get their hands on the product...
Apple: Well you don't have to go that far, maybe we can work "something" out.
Execs: Well thats more reasonable, perhaps we can work "Something" out.
Apple: (TO Self) umm humm you just keep thinking that, sure we'll agree to your "Flexible" pricing...BUT just wait until you see the terms, and when the sales slump on the first couple of releases under this plan, because TRUST me they will, we will make sure of it...
Execs: So we have a deal
Apple: Sure Sure we'll phase it in like the next year
Execs: Excellent!
Apple: (To Self) Umm humm more like 2-3, never, perhaps a token release here or there for a higher price, actually you have played right into our hands, yeah we'll rasie the prices on a few things, but wait until you see the price drops on the back catalog...Volume, its all about Volume, and didn't you notice that clause in the agreement that says we always get the same wholesale cost and keep the same amount of the profits per purchase no matter what, when the price goes down to.79 on that Metallica song from 1990, that.20 is coming out of your share not ours.
...its a matter of the huge kick back Microsoft gives the PC macker for preinstalling Windows.
This translates into a discount on the hardware for the customer.
Microsoft mentally writes it it off as the "Handle" so they can sell the Customer more "Blades" later.
Same concept as Razors, Game Consoles, Cell Phones....
With out that kickback the PC maker has to charge more for the hardware...
Anyone who denies the Microsoft Kick back doesn't happen is just deluding themselves. The Kickback is usually represented as "marketing" funds on the balance sheet.
...its a problem of the huge kick back Microsoft gives the PC maker for preinstalling Windows. This Kickback translates into a discount on the hardware for the customer. Microsoft mentally writes it off as the "handle" so they can sell the customer more "blades" later.
The menaing of day is somewhat muddleded by time....the "day's" from the bible are not to be translated literally...but more a spans of time while "god" or whatever you beleive in calling a supreme being worked on creation. So Day can equal Millions of years...
...I've been wondering. The site has been very valuable to me for several months now...infact it had become part of my daily, check this site for new stuff rotation. Hopefully they can resolve whatever dispute is keeping them offline soon, or the remaining interested parties will start a new site to replace it.
Unfortunately its sounding rather like greed has reared up in the wake of the disaster...
I just looked at the product specs OGG support is missing. This is disappointing as they have traditionally supported OGG on their hardware. So perhaps with the firware open that might be a good target for adding support.
The amount of space that your talking about needing its going to save you TIME (and remember TIME=MONEY^2 in the IT field), Money and Headaches. You will Never build anything that scales into that kind of Territory without replicating the kind of technology that EMC(or any other storage company, however EMC is the clear leader in the field a little more $ upfront, but HUGE ROI over the length of the product) has already created. The ease of use of the product and the tools available for it are going to save you and your company money in the end. Its a little more upfront, but the money you will save over the next 5+ years in labor costs, hardware maintainace, and POWER costs is worth it. A huge cluster full of JBOD is going to chew electrons like nobodies business. Never mind your time building and maintaining it...I will bet you that it will never be fully stable day to day, some part of it is always going to need poking at.
...I have participated in many betas(and quite a few alphas). The one things that I have learned is that the developers never seem to listen to what the players tell them. One of the games myself and many other testers pointed out a HUGE flaw in the game balance, 4 months before it went live. It was not until several months after go live that they eventually fixed it.
The developers should be more willing to listen to testers feedback about the games. In my opinion testing is not just about finding bugs and load testing. Its about testing to see if the game is any good or not and trying to fix those issues before go live. Many of the Betas I have participated in I have never actually played after the game's release. Why? Because flaws in the game that I pointed out as making the game un-fun persist even after go live.
The best example is "Ultima Online" I played the Beta of the game from the day the beta was first available until they cut it off before go live. I filed many many bug reports, some for out right glitches, some for game play issues. Several of the glitches persisted into the second year of the games release. Nearly all of the game play issues persisted! Eventually the game just got completely fustrating and boring. I participated in the official and unofficial game forums, however many of the things that myself and many other players continuely pointed out never got addressed. Infact many changes that were implimented actually made things worse.
I didn't go into the full detail in my original post, still not going to here. However be assured that the letter that my representitives have been sent goes into a great deal of detail.
Yes I agree Homecoming was at times tediously boring....I swear two of the books were exactly the same story. The first book has alot of promise, The last was interesting, but seemed a let down due to its moving so far forward of the originals and being almost an entirely different story that happened to involve concepts from the previous ones.
Humm...I have never found him to be a bigot. Infact he often speaks out against just that sort of thing. But again that has nothing to do with his review.
Now personally I am seeing Bigot in the racial sense. If however you are applying it to his point of view on sexuality, then perhaps...However I can't actually remember anypoint in the movie where the fact that she is a high class call girl is actually referenced. The go the the Training house, however I don't think the movie actually mentions what the training is for. Cards point of view in many things is colored by his sense of Morality. His morality says that certain things are immoral. He however at least from what I have seen does not hate others for running counter to his moral compass. I'm not sure that makes him a bigot...just my $.02 however...YMMV
Write your congressman (or whatever you have in your country) tell them you want Fair Use to be made word of law not just implied. Tell them what you believe "fair use" means and that you want that to be law. You want all the anti-fairuse tech, in fact all tech that limits you in anyway even similar to this made illegal.
Thats fine however in my opinion...You have no right make a comment about the Editors and Users of the site, and the site either evolving or devolving if you are standing outside the community. I normally would not even bother to reply to the raving (for ravings they are) of an AC (aka Troll) other than you happen to have hit on an area for which I have a passion.
To that end this reply makes so little sense, and is so much double talking babble that I'm not even going any further into it, since its not worth the brain cells to do so...
I'll just agree to differ in Opinion. I personally respect Card as writer. I also generally respect his opinions on movies and books. I can't say I fully agree with all his political Ideals. However there are some people attribute to him that simply are not true. Ender's Game is not an apology for Hitler. Card as spoken about this time and time again, that Ender and Hitler have some parallels, Yes. However he was in way even thinking of Hitler when he wrote the book.
I also disagree with his point of view on the whole "Gay" marriage thing. My opinion differs, it doesn't however make me detest him as a person and I still read and enjoy his books. He is a Religious Family man and his views of the world stage are tinted by that fact. He beleives it is the role of our government to uphold some of his ideals. I think its the role of the governemnt to uphold some of mine too, they in someways differ form his, but it is what it is.
We even have a few incommon, for instance he believes that he has the right to rip music to MP3 just like I do.
Many people on the site do not even dig that far into the man however. They respect him as the writer of Ender's Game one of the greatest sci-fi novels ever published. They do not need or want to know anything more than that about him. And thats fine too! The writer of Ender's Game likes Serenity...and thats good enough for them. I don't think this in anyway contributes to or shows any decay of the site.
Humm, could this be the surfacing of localroger on Slashdot? I have been looking all over for that eassy, figured it oughta be on the net by now, but (admittedly I have not tried very hard) have had no luck searching for it in its fully body.
To each his own, remeber that despite his sci-fi/fantasy leanings at heart Card is a very religious Family man. His opinions on many things are based on that...
Slashdot Mirror
I am sure the conversations between Apple and Music EXECs where something along these lines:
.99 is working just fine, its an excellent price point sure the less popular stuff we are probably way over charging for, but its made up for by the fact we undercharge for the more popular stuff so money gets made on volume...you can look at it the other way too and the model looks just as good.
.99 its an effective sweet spot price point, we will stick with that, besides we control 85% of the online distorbution model we must be doing something right.
.99 is what the consumer will pay, they are tired of $18 for a CD with two good songs on it, they would rather pay $1.98 to get those two good songs, or $18 to get 18 good songs. Your trying to achive price parity we see it you want the same cash for that CD without selling the end user the physical media. Nice cost savings for you, no raw materials cost, no shipping, no brick and mortar, You must really think those users are idiots.
.99
.79 on that Metallica song from 1990, that .20 is coming out of your share not ours.
Execs: You need to allow a flexible pricing model where more popular stuff costs more so we can all make more money
Apple: No we don't
Execs: We don't care about the less popular stuff from the bands with actual talent, never did, those acts could drop off the face of the earth for all we care, charge whatever you want for that stuff, here is a list of the artists we care about and have the payola going to promote them even though we all know they suck, oh wait crap *sleep* When I snap my fingers you will akwake and not remember I ever mentioned anything about payola *snap*
Apple: huh, wa...oh yeah, no we are sticking with
Execs: We'll stop selling our stuff through iTunes, then where will you be?
Apple: Eh, whatever you'll be back...we control 85% of the market and sell the most popular player.
Execs: Oh yeah we wanted to talk to you about that we want a cut of the iPod hardware sales too, its only fair.
Apple: Na, You don't seem to understand you need us as I've pointed out we basically own this market yes you make the widget we are the only effective way of getting the widget to the customer
Execs: We'll take our toys and go home, without the music you have no store....
Apple: Without our STORE you have NO STORE
Execs: so there see we need each other so lets talk about that pricing
Apple: no really you don't seem to understand
Execs: (TO self) Oh shit they are on to us.
Apple: No really I think we are going to stick with
Execs: I think you don't understand, we really are going to take our ball and go home, ALL of us where will your store be if none of us provide the music to sell in it. NONE. Other stores will work with us on it, sure the players they support are not as good, the store isn't the best model, but hell they will charge whatever we tell them to charge just to get their hands on the product...
Apple: Well you don't have to go that far, maybe we can work "something" out.
Execs: Well thats more reasonable, perhaps we can work "Something" out.
Apple: (TO Self) umm humm you just keep thinking that, sure we'll agree to your "Flexible" pricing...BUT just wait until you see the terms, and when the sales slump on the first couple of releases under this plan, because TRUST me they will, we will make sure of it...
Execs: So we have a deal
Apple: Sure Sure we'll phase it in like the next year
Execs: Excellent!
Apple: (To Self) Umm humm more like 2-3, never, perhaps a token release here or there for a higher price, actually you have played right into our hands, yeah we'll rasie the prices on a few things, but wait until you see the price drops on the back catalog...Volume, its all about Volume, and didn't you notice that clause in the agreement that says we always get the same wholesale cost and keep the same amount of the profits per purchase no matter what, when the price goes down to
...its a matter of the huge kick back Microsoft gives the PC macker for preinstalling Windows.
This translates into a discount on the hardware for the customer.
Microsoft mentally writes it it off as the "Handle" so they can sell the Customer more "Blades" later.
Same concept as Razors, Game Consoles, Cell Phones....
With out that kickback the PC maker has to charge more for the hardware...
Anyone who denies the Microsoft Kick back doesn't happen is just deluding themselves. The Kickback is usually represented as "marketing" funds on the balance sheet.
...its a problem of the huge kick back Microsoft gives the PC maker for preinstalling Windows. This Kickback translates into a discount on the hardware for the customer. Microsoft mentally writes it off as the "handle" so they can sell the customer more "blades" later.
The menaing of day is somewhat muddleded by time....the "day's" from the bible are not to be translated literally...but more a spans of time while "god" or whatever you beleive in calling a supreme being worked on creation. So Day can equal Millions of years...
...I've been wondering. The site has been very valuable to me for several months now...infact it had become part of my daily, check this site for new stuff rotation. Hopefully they can resolve whatever dispute is keeping them offline soon, or the remaining interested parties will start a new site to replace it.
Unfortunately its sounding rather like greed has reared up in the wake of the disaster...
...hit a hard thorny problem, go get something to eat or drink...whats going to make you feel better, ususally something bad for you.
Well personally I wouldn't even pay the .99 for iTunes...get it into .49 a song and $5 for an entire album and perhaps we can talk.
As for movies....$2 for anything up to a two hour movie, perhaps another $1 for each additional two hours...
If you want to get into TV series $10 a season...
Again one would expect that Microsoft would have the infrastructure to survive the massive traffic surge of a slashdotting, better than this...
Not saying that at all, I just expect a company like microsoft to have infrastructure that can stand up to a slashdotting better than most.
Only 18 comments in and the links are already slashdotted...
Just goes to show what IIS and SQL Server will do for you....
I just looked at the product specs OGG support is missing. This is disappointing as they have traditionally supported OGG on their hardware. So perhaps with the firware open that might be a good target for adding support.
The amount of space that your talking about needing its going to save you TIME (and remember TIME=MONEY^2 in the IT field), Money and Headaches. You will Never build anything that scales into that kind of Territory without replicating the kind of technology that EMC(or any other storage company, however EMC is the clear leader in the field a little more $ upfront, but HUGE ROI over the length of the product) has already created. The ease of use of the product and the tools available for it are going to save you and your company money in the end. Its a little more upfront, but the money you will save over the next 5+ years in labor costs, hardware maintainace, and POWER costs is worth it. A huge cluster full of JBOD is going to chew electrons like nobodies business. Never mind your time building and maintaining it...I will bet you that it will never be fully stable day to day, some part of it is always going to need poking at.
...I have participated in many betas(and quite a few alphas). The one things that I have learned is that the developers never seem to listen to what the players tell them. One of the games myself and many other testers pointed out a HUGE flaw in the game balance, 4 months before it went live. It was not until several months after go live that they eventually fixed it.
The developers should be more willing to listen to testers feedback about the games. In my opinion testing is not just about finding bugs and load testing. Its about testing to see if the game is any good or not and trying to fix those issues before go live. Many of the Betas I have participated in I have never actually played after the game's release. Why? Because flaws in the game that I pointed out as making the game un-fun persist even after go live.
The best example is "Ultima Online" I played the Beta of the game from the day the beta was first available until they cut it off before go live. I filed many many bug reports, some for out right glitches, some for game play issues. Several of the glitches persisted into the second year of the games release. Nearly all of the game play issues persisted! Eventually the game just got completely fustrating and boring. I participated in the official and unofficial game forums, however many of the things that myself and many other players continuely pointed out never got addressed. Infact many changes that were implimented actually made things worse.
In most of those places, the government either owns or has significant control over the Telcoms industry.
I didn't go into the full detail in my original post, still not going to here. However be assured that the letter that my representitives have been sent goes into a great deal of detail.
Yes I agree Homecoming was at times tediously boring....I swear two of the books were exactly the same story. The first book has alot of promise, The last was interesting, but seemed a let down due to its moving so far forward of the originals and being almost an entirely different story that happened to involve concepts from the previous ones.
Humm...I have never found him to be a bigot. Infact he often speaks out against just that sort of thing. But again that has nothing to do with his review.
Now personally I am seeing Bigot in the racial sense. If however you are applying it to his point of view on sexuality, then perhaps...However I can't actually remember anypoint in the movie where the fact that she is a high class call girl is actually referenced. The go the the Training house, however I don't think the movie actually mentions what the training is for. Cards point of view in many things is colored by his sense of Morality. His morality says that certain things are immoral. He however at least from what I have seen does not hate others for running counter to his moral compass. I'm not sure that makes him a bigot...just my $.02 however...YMMV
He he he...read Cards "Homecoming" series, pretty much the best indepth review of the book of mormon your gonna get.
...DRM, Broadcast Flag, ETC...its all crap.
Write your congressman (or whatever you have in your country) tell them you want Fair Use to be made word of law not just implied. Tell them what you believe "fair use" means and that you want that to be law. You want all the anti-fairuse tech, in fact all tech that limits you in anyway even similar to this made illegal.
Thats fine however in my opinion...You have no right make a comment about the Editors and Users of the site, and the site either evolving or devolving if you are standing outside the community. I normally would not even bother to reply to the raving (for ravings they are) of an AC (aka Troll) other than you happen to have hit on an area for which I have a passion.
To that end this reply makes so little sense, and is so much double talking babble that I'm not even going any further into it, since its not worth the brain cells to do so...
He has since seen all 3...I forget what his opinion was, and I'm not in the mood to research it...
...stop posting as a pussy AC...If you have a true strong Opinion at least have the decency to put your name to it...
I'll just agree to differ in Opinion. I personally respect Card as writer. I also generally respect his opinions on movies and books. I can't say I fully agree with all his political Ideals. However there are some people attribute to him that simply are not true. Ender's Game is not an apology for Hitler. Card as spoken about this time and time again, that Ender and Hitler have some parallels, Yes. However he was in way even thinking of Hitler when he wrote the book.
I also disagree with his point of view on the whole "Gay" marriage thing. My opinion differs, it doesn't however make me detest him as a person and I still read and enjoy his books. He is a Religious Family man and his views of the world stage are tinted by that fact. He beleives it is the role of our government to uphold some of his ideals. I think its the role of the governemnt to uphold some of mine too, they in someways differ form his, but it is what it is.
We even have a few incommon, for instance he believes that he has the right to rip music to MP3 just like I do.
Many people on the site do not even dig that far into the man however. They respect him as the writer of Ender's Game one of the greatest sci-fi novels ever published. They do not need or want to know anything more than that about him. And thats fine too!
The writer of Ender's Game likes Serenity...and thats good enough for them. I don't think this in anyway contributes to or shows any decay of the site.
Humm, could this be the surfacing of localroger on Slashdot? I have been looking all over for that eassy, figured it oughta be on the net by now, but (admittedly I have not tried very hard) have had no luck searching for it in its fully body.
To each his own, remeber that despite his sci-fi/fantasy leanings at heart Card is a very religious Family man. His opinions on many things are based on that...