The whole point of the system is for Apple to get a really, really small slice of every transaction that their iPhone users conduct. Take every CC transaction you have made in the past year & multiply it by every iPhone users. That is a lot of fucking money.
But iTunes and the other digital stores suck because the selection is so damned limited.
I listen to rock & roll & I have a more extensive collection of music than the iTunes store because they only carry what is currently in print.
What I haven't figured out is why doesn't the labels REALLY roll out their whole damned catalog to digital distribution. There is a lot of music I would like to buy, but I can't get because it is either out of print or it isn't available in the US.
The labels target the demographic that has the least amount of of money. The labels price their product so high that the demographic target look for substitute goods (in economic terms). The labels still look for a "hit" rather than build artist recognition. Bruce Springsteen, Bob Seger, Billy Joel, Ted Nugent, Kiss etc would never make it today, because they weren't platinum artist out of the gate.
In the 70s, labels shoved a band in a cheap studio for 2-3 weeks to crank out an album, then sent them out on the road for 6-9 months solid. Upon return, rinse lather & repeat. This built steady revenue for both the artist & the label. Bands could and did sell out 5-10 thousand seaters without having so much as 1 album that went gold. Compare to tours today. Would Christina Aguilera, Beyonce etc be successful with just themselves, the band and a backdrop. Probably not, because I suspect that the music wouldn't hold up without the dancers 100 backup singers etc.
Personally, I blame it all on MTV. Today the visuals are more important than the music.
CDs started out at 15 a pop. This was double the cost of an album. The reason for the doubling of price was the cost of building the CD manufacturing facilities. And of course, the labels assured us that the prices would go down as the debt was retired. Then a funny thing happened....
Everyone went out & replaced their albums with CDs. And there was Joy in Mudville. But then buyers noticed that the CDs didn't sound like their LPs. The labels discovered that the RIAA equalization (used to address the limitations of vinyl) made CDs sound harsh. So the labels remastered and re-released quite a few of those CDs. Some artists just adjusted equalization (KISS) and some artists went the extra mile and added stuff. And a very large majority went out and replaced their CDs with the Remastered versions of their music. And there was Joy in Mudville.
By this time, the manufacturing costs of a CD had dropped to less than $1 per CD in lots of 1000. The labels had a choice, 1. lower prices to encourage customers to purchase more, or 2. book the extra profits. And there was joy in Mudville as the extra profits were booked. Then a funny thing happened...
People notices that they were not getting as much from their purchases as they thought they once did. Customers started to as why the soundtrack to Kill Bill Vol 1 cost more than the DVD for the movie. And then there was no joy in Mudville.
I could go on & on about failed CD replacements (SACD) & media consolidation, but there is no point.
Nope, he isn't kidding. These items are still in a lot of contracts.
And it is actually worse
Breakage is based on the old 72rpm thingies. (No, I don't have any, but I have seen them, no not the cylinders. They were the predecessors to vinyl 33.3 rpm albums. They were also very fragile)
And notice, they are no longer on Atlantic records, yet they have a national distribution deal with Redeye for their own label (Purple Feather).
What do the major labels bring to the party?
A lot of overhead.
And best of all, only 1 or 2 songs aren't top notch. On the other hand, I can tell what they have been listening to, Def Leppard isn't a bad band to steal from tho.
Well, looking at my collection of Mike Oldfield & Tangerine Dream I would say that it was based on the media available at the time. For Example: Tubular Bells has a part 1 & 2 because it was released in 1973 Tubular Bells II & III came out in 1992 & 1998 and take advantage of the CD medium and flow for the entire 70+ minutes.
Tangerine Dream is the same way, but they have moved away from doing 20+ minute compositions.
Whereas just a couple of years ago the labels were trying to kill the single. When Men in Black came out, the theme song by Will Smith was #1; but it was ONLY available on the soundtrack. The labels refused to release it as a single.
Not quite... The record labels do not: Provide the studio Studio Costs Pay for possible orchestral accompaniment
The label charges all of that to the artist (out of future royalties). The labels NEVER risk their own money. If they don't make it all back through album sales, then they can A. use the expenses as a Tax write-off (Net Operating Loss) and B. The artist is in hock to the label.
That is why artist build their own studios to record in. It is actually cheaper.
It amazes me that here in El Paso, people will spend 10K to redo their bathrooms (and increase their property taxes), but would never consider spending that kind of cash on solar panels. In Texas, we even get property tax exemptions for installing them.
1. Your 1.6Ghz G4 isn't the fastest available. The fastest G4 is 2.0Ghz (7448).
2. You are no longer at 100% of the cases that you have heard.
I must have a special version of NeoOffice. It runs as fast as Office 2004 on my G4. It doesn't choke on large documents 100+ pages like Office 04. Well, it didn't get slow until I added 25+ pages of nested tables. I need to do something about that......OBTW, don't do 25+ pages of nested tables.
I don't know anything about font issues, I don't appear to have them. I also don't have print problems. Go figure.
It works like the windows version of Office, unlike Office 04.
Granted, it isn't too fast on my B&W G3, but that is why it is the spare machine.
Slashdot Mirror
No
The whole point of the system is for Apple to get a really, really small slice of every transaction that their iPhone users conduct. Take every CC transaction you have made in the past year & multiply it by every iPhone users. That is a lot of fucking money.
3x the price of a netbook. - Apple care means it will last 3 times as long as a netbook
3X more useful - for me, the full size keyboard makes it worth it.
3x less likely to break like a netbook. - I bought one last year, it is already falling apart.
It is now time to replace the Macbook Pro.
Get shot in the leg sometime. Take a hit anywhere from any military caliber rifle & you are out of the fight.
And just who do you think will be doing all of the manual labor in AZ?
Businesses in the SW love immigrant labor. Helps keep the cost of wages down.
I suspect you would be very, very comfortable as a member of the STASSI....
That is because most of the whiners didn't buy a 2G phone. They were too busy whining about the cost of the phone.
But iTunes and the other digital stores suck because the selection is so damned limited.
I listen to rock & roll & I have a more extensive collection of music than the iTunes store because they only carry what is currently in print.
What I haven't figured out is why doesn't the labels REALLY roll out their whole damned catalog to digital distribution. There is a lot of music I would like to buy, but I can't get because it is either out of print or it isn't available in the US.
What you are seeing is basic economics in action.
The labels target the demographic that has the least amount of of money.
The labels price their product so high that the demographic target look for substitute goods (in economic terms).
The labels still look for a "hit" rather than build artist recognition. Bruce Springsteen, Bob Seger, Billy Joel, Ted Nugent, Kiss etc would never make it today, because they weren't platinum artist out of the gate.
In the 70s, labels shoved a band in a cheap studio for 2-3 weeks to crank out an album, then sent them out on the road for 6-9 months solid. Upon return, rinse lather & repeat. This built steady revenue for both the artist & the label. Bands could and did sell out 5-10 thousand seaters without having so much as 1 album that went gold. Compare to tours today. Would Christina Aguilera, Beyonce etc be successful with just themselves, the band and a backdrop. Probably not, because I suspect that the music wouldn't hold up without the dancers 100 backup singers etc.
Personally, I blame it all on MTV. Today the visuals are more important than the music.
CDs started out at 15 a pop. This was double the cost of an album. The reason for the doubling of price was the cost of building the CD manufacturing facilities. And of course, the labels assured us that the prices would go down as the debt was retired. Then a funny thing happened....
Everyone went out & replaced their albums with CDs. And there was Joy in Mudville. But then buyers noticed that the CDs didn't sound like their LPs. The labels discovered that the RIAA equalization (used to address the limitations of vinyl) made CDs sound harsh. So the labels remastered and re-released quite a few of those CDs. Some artists just adjusted equalization (KISS) and some artists went the extra mile and added stuff. And a very large majority went out and replaced their CDs with the Remastered versions of their music. And there was Joy in Mudville.
By this time, the manufacturing costs of a CD had dropped to less than $1 per CD in lots of 1000. The labels had a choice, 1. lower prices to encourage customers to purchase more, or 2. book the extra profits. And there was joy in Mudville as the extra profits were booked. Then a funny thing happened...
People notices that they were not getting as much from their purchases as they thought they once did. Customers started to as why the soundtrack to Kill Bill Vol 1 cost more than the DVD for the movie. And then there was no joy in Mudville.
I could go on & on about failed CD replacements (SACD) & media consolidation, but there is no point.
Nope, he isn't kidding. These items are still in a lot of contracts.
And it is actually worse
Breakage is based on the old 72rpm thingies. (No, I don't have any, but I have seen them, no not the cylinders. They were the predecessors to vinyl 33.3 rpm albums. They were also very fragile)
And notice, they are no longer on Atlantic records, yet they have a national distribution deal with Redeye for their own label (Purple Feather).
What do the major labels bring to the party?
A lot of overhead.
And best of all, only 1 or 2 songs aren't top notch. On the other hand, I can tell what they have been listening to, Def Leppard isn't a bad band to steal from tho.
Well, looking at my collection of Mike Oldfield & Tangerine Dream I would say that it was based on the media available at the time.
For Example:
Tubular Bells has a part 1 & 2 because it was released in 1973
Tubular Bells II & III came out in 1992 & 1998 and take advantage of the CD medium and flow for the entire 70+ minutes.
Tangerine Dream is the same way, but they have moved away from doing 20+ minute compositions.
True that...
The only thing I want to hear from Christina Aguilera is her moaning my name.
Whereas just a couple of years ago the labels were trying to kill the single. When Men in Black came out, the theme song by Will Smith was #1; but it was ONLY available on the soundtrack. The labels refused to release it as a single.
it was less than a buck each to manufacture CDs in lots of 1000 in 2000.
The reason why is Media consolidation Laws courtesy of the Republican Party during the Saint Reagan era.
Not quite...
The record labels do not:
Provide the studio
Studio Costs
Pay for possible orchestral accompaniment
The label charges all of that to the artist (out of future royalties). The labels NEVER risk their own money. If they don't make it all back through album sales, then they can A. use the expenses as a Tax write-off (Net Operating Loss) and B. The artist is in hock to the label.
That is why artist build their own studios to record in. It is actually cheaper.
Damn, love the flock of seagulls reference!
And me with no mod points.....
If your time has value, then you should be able to pay for 1st class. If you can't afford it, just go back to steerage.
Name 1 other Apple product that had it's price slashed 1/3 in 60 days.
It amazes me that here in El Paso, people will spend 10K to redo their bathrooms (and increase their property taxes), but would never consider spending that kind of cash on solar panels. In Texas, we even get property tax exemptions for installing them.
Oops... 39 cents a share and dropping......
Currently, at 40 cents a share, I could probably buy the entire company with the change in my fish bowl.
You left off the snark tag.
Xtian fundamentalists support Isreal because they need them to die to start the end days.
1. Your 1.6Ghz G4 isn't the fastest available. The fastest G4 is 2.0Ghz (7448).
2. You are no longer at 100% of the cases that you have heard.
I must have a special version of NeoOffice. It runs as fast as Office 2004 on my G4. It doesn't choke on large documents 100+ pages like Office 04. Well, it didn't get slow until I added 25+ pages of nested tables. I need to do something about that......OBTW, don't do 25+ pages of nested tables.
I don't know anything about font issues, I don't appear to have them. I also don't have print problems. Go figure.
It works like the windows version of Office, unlike Office 04.
Granted, it isn't too fast on my B&W G3, but that is why it is the spare machine.