The reason raising prices will hurt them more than it will help them is because of what it means when a product costs less than a dollar.
For the vast majority of people who would be considering buying online music, anything less than a dollar is change not worth worrying about, so it is much more "disposable" than things that are priced more than a dollar. That is why retailers list things as.99 instead of 1.00.
And while I know prices can never stay the same due to inflation, I have to say that the industry deserves no more out of this than they're getting. I'm using MY bandwidth that I pay for to get their product. They're not even providing me with the method to do so, Apple is.
I completely agree, however, it is important to note that the ONLY reason this can work for Apple is because of the cache they have with society right now. I mean, lets face it, Steve Jobs could take a shit, they could make white plastic replicas, and all the Apple fans would eat it up.
But the reason that makes this work so well is because it makes existing loyal customers buy the same product twice (whoops, I mean upgrade), and gets everybody else thinkin "wow, they really improved it from the last time, and all these other people are buying them, I guess I'll cave and finally get one."
As an American, all I have to say is, "leave it to the Japanese to take massive steps towards furthering the human race while the rest of us are stuck here fighting amongst ourselves."
People will buy Halo 3. It will probably be VERY pretty, but I'm really not expecting much in terms of gameplay improvements.
Sony has always had plenty of interesting and varied titles for the PS on launch, and the PS3's total sales still outnumber Xbox easily if you count Japan, which is NOT a country to forget about in terms of total sales.
And what makes people think PS3 won't have some killer launch titles? Gran Turismo 5 anybody? Final Fantasy XIVIXIX?
I don't know which I hate more, ringtones themselves, or Jamster, the company that has recently been advertising them all over tv.
Not only are they the most annoying ringtones ever, but they suck you into the weekly fee scam of charging you a couple bucks every week for the ability to "rent" the ringtones. Plus they spam the hell out of you.
You know, someone should set up a Slashdot fund and make it available to view on a website. Just a fantasy stock market thing that would track the stock prices of all the companies Slashdot loves to hate.
We could have: MS SCO Infinium Sony HP this company Etc.
I don't know about you guys, but I've always felt that if you are going to be restricted by rules and laws, those rules and laws need to be available for your viewing.
I mean, the reason people go to law school and the reason pay lawyers so much money is because the law is something that needs to be done BY THE LETTER. It sounds like the airlines want us just to abide by the spirit of the law.
And while I personally wish society were at point where we COULD just go by the spirit of things, we are not there yet, and so in order to protect OUR rights, and OUR safety, we need to be able to view these laws and make certain we're not getting screwed over.
The problem is that while all this is nice in theory, and I'm sure it would be a blast, the reality of it is that it would be extremely rare to randomly meet people to play with.
Nobody carries their DS in their hand, so you never know who has one. I have a DS, and not only have I never seen another person with one (I live in a city), but I don't think anybody would think to themselve "ok, I'll go to the mall and find someone to play my DS with!"
Just out of curiosity, and yes, this is somewhat on-topic, how useful is arts and crafts for getting rid of old harddrives?
I mean, lets say I theoretically have an old harddrive with information on it that I absolutely want permanently destroyed. Whats the best way to do it on the cheap for a college student? I don't have access to acid or anything else like that.
I don't want to just throw it out because god knows who could find it, so I've wondered about turning it into art that nobody would find suspicious.
The episode of Family Guy where Peter goes to the Barrington Country Club and gets killed actually showed the country club from my hometown of Barrington, IL.
Its a rich snobby suburb and the reason the joke about a black person there was so funny is because when Mr. Wamburg (one of the richest men in the area) brought his friend Michael Jordan, they refused Jordan entrance. Yeah. That's right, they shut down MJ.
To all who have shot down the idea for vehicles because you shouldn't have to hold it out the window....well, if any of you are engineers/designers, shame on you.
It would be so simple to put an air scoop on that was connected to an interior valve where you could put your device on and it would recharge from outside air.
Or you could maybe hook it up to the filter so the air was cleaner. Hell, drill a few holes in buses, put in a few of these ports, and watch people take more bus trips since they can charge their phones for free.
I have to say I downloaded Vampire and played HL2 at a friends house. I ended up buying HL2. Its amazing how crappy the graphics were for the engine they used in Vampire. Not only that, there were some serious bugs in gameplay.
But the LARP crowd in general ate it up just because they did a pretty decent job of sticking to the way things should be in the World of Darkness.
I did this same exact thing except halfway through I put in a not quite polite comment about the teacher and how I put in all the effort to write all this, and he doesn't even bother to read it.
Well, its a darker movie, so it looks better in that regard. I dunno how hot I am about a droid wielding 4 lightsabers. Thats right up there with surfing on lava for me.
I'll definitely download the movie, and I'll probably end up seeing it, since its the last one in the series and what not. (Please say its the last George, or we will FORCIBLY retire you!)
I'm willing to bet someone sat down, and ran the numbers to see which would cost more, paying off the workers to keep working late to placate them, or to actually solve the problem of them working overtime.
What with all the other "legalized" forms of extortion currently going on, I guess deep down I can't really blame him.
I mean, I'm not saying I approve at all, and she should definitely be arrested, but I just kinda think sometimes that it needs to be open season on corporations.
Slashdot Mirror
For the vast majority of people who would be considering buying online music, anything less than a dollar is change not worth worrying about, so it is much more "disposable" than things that are priced more than a dollar. That is why retailers list things as .99 instead of 1.00.
And while I know prices can never stay the same due to inflation, I have to say that the industry deserves no more out of this than they're getting. I'm using MY bandwidth that I pay for to get their product. They're not even providing me with the method to do so, Apple is.
Or you could have a recessed area that could fit both an iPod and a Shuffle and then be covered or something.
But the reason that makes this work so well is because it makes existing loyal customers buy the same product twice (whoops, I mean upgrade), and gets everybody else thinkin "wow, they really improved it from the last time, and all these other people are buying them, I guess I'll cave and finally get one."
Sony has always had plenty of interesting and varied titles for the PS on launch, and the PS3's total sales still outnumber Xbox easily if you count Japan, which is NOT a country to forget about in terms of total sales.
And what makes people think PS3 won't have some killer launch titles? Gran Turismo 5 anybody? Final Fantasy XIVIXIX?
Not only are they the most annoying ringtones ever, but they suck you into the weekly fee scam of charging you a couple bucks every week for the ability to "rent" the ringtones. Plus they spam the hell out of you.
We could have:
MS
SCO
Infinium
Sony
HP
this company
Etc.
In other words, Slashdot editors want a free one to play with.
I mean, the reason people go to law school and the reason pay lawyers so much money is because the law is something that needs to be done BY THE LETTER. It sounds like the airlines want us just to abide by the spirit of the law.
And while I personally wish society were at point where we COULD just go by the spirit of things, we are not there yet, and so in order to protect OUR rights, and OUR safety, we need to be able to view these laws and make certain we're not getting screwed over.
Nobody carries their DS in their hand, so you never know who has one. I have a DS, and not only have I never seen another person with one (I live in a city), but I don't think anybody would think to themselve "ok, I'll go to the mall and find someone to play my DS with!"
I mean, lets say I theoretically have an old harddrive with information on it that I absolutely want permanently destroyed. Whats the best way to do it on the cheap for a college student? I don't have access to acid or anything else like that.
I don't want to just throw it out because god knows who could find it, so I've wondered about turning it into art that nobody would find suspicious.
It would be so simple to put an air scoop on that was connected to an interior valve where you could put your device on and it would recharge from outside air.
Or you could maybe hook it up to the filter so the air was cleaner. Hell, drill a few holes in buses, put in a few of these ports, and watch people take more bus trips since they can charge their phones for free.
yes.
But the LARP crowd in general ate it up just because they did a pretty decent job of sticking to the way things should be in the World of Darkness.
I got an A, zero corrections.
I'll definitely download the movie, and I'll probably end up seeing it, since its the last one in the series and what not. (Please say its the last George, or we will FORCIBLY retire you!)
Guess which ended up costing them less money.
I mean, I'm not saying I approve at all, and she should definitely be arrested, but I just kinda think sometimes that it needs to be open season on corporations.