The article compares sales from the Christmas quarter to other seasonaly low quarters. This is a totally unfair comparison. It's my understanding that a fair quarter to quarter comparison shows that iPod growth has occured year over year. And I have no doubt that the calendar 4Q will bring more than 14 million iPod sales (last year's sales). Comparing sales from the non-holiday quarter is not a reasonable comparison, as so many people spend more at retail during the holiday season.
Furthermore, the article argues that people will turn to mobile phones to listen to MP3s and music. This ignores the fact that no mobile phone interface has developed anywhere near as good an interface as the iPod. And that it is possible (if not probable) that Apple will enter the cell phone business, creating a phone that will play music and that competes with this threat.
This article seems as though it was written by someone with a grudge.
WiFi is worth $10 per hour if I'm at a hotel and I only have an hour before I head to a conference or meeting and I need to check my e-mail. To compare it to the cost of a movie is silly; of course very few people are going to pay $10 to surf the web for fun, but for business travelers on the go, it may be perfectly acceptable to pay $10 an hour plus to get on the net on their own laptop.
That being said, companies have to make a choice. They can either market themselves as a business solution and charge $10 per hour, in which case they ought to be providing high bandwidth, high reliability service with excellent support, or they can offer a crappy service for less money which will attract people who are just looking to kill time or surf for fun.
The point is this: there are plenty of situations where I'd be willing to pay $10 for an hour's use of WiFi. There are tons of other situations where that's not for me, in which case the people who do need the service will be happy to not have me stealing their bandwidth.
The title is flawed. The RIAA isn't suing it's customers. A customer is someone who purchases your products. It is suing people who STOLE their product. Get it right.
I've got a nice pair of Bose headphones, and I listened to an Apple Store AAC file and an OGG version of the same song. I don't consider myself a real audiophile, but it's damn near impossible to tell the difference between the two; though I can definitely hear the improvement from MP3 to AAC or OGG.
I think the no retractions policy is to protect eBay from lawsuits. If they don't allow retractions, they will claim that they are an arms length from the process, and they can't be accused of selectively allowing some changes and disallowing others.
There are plenty of problems with eBay's feedback mechanisim; I think the no retraction policy is probably a good idea. I think Phil Agre wrote an excellent piece on what's wrong with the system.
The real question will be: do comments posted on a site like this, which make it easier for comments to be submitted, have the same weight as comments that are mailed in. Some agencies made it really difficul to comment, which meant that only people who cared enough to follow the directions, make 10 copies, and take a trip to the post office were able to comment. When it's this easy to submit feedback on legislation and policy, the tone and quality of the message may be significantly impacted.
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The article compares sales from the Christmas quarter to other seasonaly low quarters. This is a totally unfair comparison. It's my understanding that a fair quarter to quarter comparison shows that iPod growth has occured year over year. And I have no doubt that the calendar 4Q will bring more than 14 million iPod sales (last year's sales). Comparing sales from the non-holiday quarter is not a reasonable comparison, as so many people spend more at retail during the holiday season. Furthermore, the article argues that people will turn to mobile phones to listen to MP3s and music. This ignores the fact that no mobile phone interface has developed anywhere near as good an interface as the iPod. And that it is possible (if not probable) that Apple will enter the cell phone business, creating a phone that will play music and that competes with this threat. This article seems as though it was written by someone with a grudge.
XM Radio carries BBC World Service. Sirius carries two NPR stations plus the BBC World Service and a service from PRI, Public Radio International.
WiFi is worth $10 per hour if I'm at a hotel and I only have an hour before I head to a conference or meeting and I need to check my e-mail. To compare it to the cost of a movie is silly; of course very few people are going to pay $10 to surf the web for fun, but for business travelers on the go, it may be perfectly acceptable to pay $10 an hour plus to get on the net on their own laptop. That being said, companies have to make a choice. They can either market themselves as a business solution and charge $10 per hour, in which case they ought to be providing high bandwidth, high reliability service with excellent support, or they can offer a crappy service for less money which will attract people who are just looking to kill time or surf for fun. The point is this: there are plenty of situations where I'd be willing to pay $10 for an hour's use of WiFi. There are tons of other situations where that's not for me, in which case the people who do need the service will be happy to not have me stealing their bandwidth.
The title is flawed. The RIAA isn't suing it's customers. A customer is someone who purchases your products. It is suing people who STOLE their product. Get it right.
I've got a nice pair of Bose headphones, and I listened to an Apple Store AAC file and an OGG version of the same song. I don't consider myself a real audiophile, but it's damn near impossible to tell the difference between the two; though I can definitely hear the improvement from MP3 to AAC or OGG.
I think the no retractions policy is to protect eBay from lawsuits. If they don't allow retractions, they will claim that they are an arms length from the process, and they can't be accused of selectively allowing some changes and disallowing others. There are plenty of problems with eBay's feedback mechanisim; I think the no retraction policy is probably a good idea. I think Phil Agre wrote an excellent piece on what's wrong with the system.
The real question will be: do comments posted on a site like this, which make it easier for comments to be submitted, have the same weight as comments that are mailed in. Some agencies made it really difficul to comment, which meant that only people who cared enough to follow the directions, make 10 copies, and take a trip to the post office were able to comment. When it's this easy to submit feedback on legislation and policy, the tone and quality of the message may be significantly impacted.