I can buy a lot of CDs from CD-Wow for 9 (I guess about $14). If each has 11 tracks, that's $11 vs $14.
But I'd rather pay $14 for a piece of solid media that I can always resell on ebay for the extra $3, get cover artwork etc.
The cost of providing a download is nothing like the cost of selling a CD. There's retailers margins, restocking fees, duplication costs, the lot. Downloads don't have any of these.
Well, as you pointed out Microsoft is a software vendor and Apple sells Hardware. But Software can be cool, just look at Linux. Like it or not, Tux is veeeery popular because he's cute and cool.
Tux does look cool, because like the Apple logo there's something more Organic about it. Whatever Microsoft do, their logos are corporate and bland. They don't have much choice, because they don't want to scare off the corporates.
The coolness about Linux comes from the attitude people have for it, though. It's the difference between buying Britney Spears and the Grateful Dead.
The problem is, I imagine that if they accidentally hit someone rich enough to defend themselves, they'd back down.
They probably know that in a court of law that a judge would give quite measley damages for file sharing (say $100). That's assuming they don't get a jury who decide to just turn over the RIAA.
Once people realise that StarOffice/OpenOffice aren't some geek toys and are serious suites for Office development, they'll be much less fearful of switching.
That is, once people know 2 or 3 people who say "we used OpenOffice/StarOffice at company X and it was fine and saved us a packet".
OpenOffice isn't going to grow because of IT Directors deciding to use it. It will be people installing it themselves, or trying it at home and finding they like it and forcing the issue upwards.
I get a lot of offers. Some are by email, some are by web, some are in the post.
Personally, I find popups far more objectionable than email, and screen them. I do the same thing for Spam, so that people offering me body enhancements, get rich quick schemes etc can't get through.
Occassionally, though, I get something from people that is targetted to my old company, and quite closely targetted. Generally, I zap these. But I don't object to receiving them, because they are the kind of opportunities that I *might* be interested in. Often, they are not even doing multiple mailings - it's more like someone personally making a cold call.
It's like ringtones. You can download them, the record companies make a little bit of money and the phone companies do too.
It's legal, and people use it. I know there are methods of copying ringtones, but people don't. WHY? Because it's easier to download them, and they are cheap enough that people can't be bothered.
My point is (and partly yours), is that people are prepared to pay. Think about it - I know how to wire up networks, but I would rather pay someone and do something else.
Buying CDs is more work than downloading. You have to either order online and wait for it to arrive, or get in a car and drive into town.
What the record companies also have to do is reduce the price of tracks. Plenty of people know that an 11 CD has a lot of costs that a download doesn't like pressing, distribution, shop profit etc. Make it the equivalent of 4-5 per CD and I'll be interested.
There's nothing wrong with their delivery methods -- it's cost : benefit ratio for the consumer is losing balance.
Kinda like the flipside of when they made huge profits from overpricing CDs and reselling people material they already owned on vinyl at ridiculous prices.
And there was me thinking that a lot of artists make their real big money out of touring and t-shirts (some bands made more money out of t-shirts than records).
But the karma has been worse lately. By going after the filesharers, the RIAA is generating bad karma between themselves and the filesharers.
They're doing a fine job of turning filesharers into the oppressed. Suing 12 year old girls and pensioners is generally not good for PR. Going after professional copyright infringers scores much better, but if they're not careful, they'll lose public trust totally, and the professionals will start getting acquitted by jurors.
So, no-one should be able to take advantage of a free/cheaper method of delivering information.
By your reckoning, Junk mail by post (or me printing letters and hand delivering) is fine, but email isn't?
Even though posting is environmentally damaging, and lacks the flexibility of email.
I'm convinced that the only reason governments doesn't attack junk mail like they do with spam is that they generally have a stake in the postal service.
I'm not talking about flooding thousands of people, just using email as if I would for paper junk mail.
Let's say that I run a company that provides Real Estate software solutions to companies, and I pick out a couple of hundred estate agents and email them about my new software? AND, if people tell me to remove them, I am responsible enough to do it.
Personally, I don't think of that as Spam. It's targeted quite closely to the people.
I imagine there's no way someone can 'force' a case either.
For instance, let's say the RIAA makes a big mistake and sues the kid of a hot shot lawyer with plenty of resources, who decides to bite and take the whole thing to a long-winded public jury trial.
Presumably, the RIAA would just drop the case, where what you really need them to do is get a judge/jury who think that suing 12 year old kids for copying music from millionaires deserves either to be thrown out or re-educated with listening to the complete back catalogue of The Fall.
Toyota was first to market with a low-cost manufacturing process.
low, meaning what, exactly? I think Henry Ford may have been first with a low-cost manufacturing process (say, compared to those around him).
Toyota certainly run a very efficient (and by result) cheaper manufacturing process.
AFAIK, Toyota is still thriving. And what's important about customer satisfaction surveys is a whole lot. If someone buys a Subaru Impreza and loves it, and the attitude of Subaru dealers, what's the chances of them buying another one?
I once got very worried about this too, when I built a system for a financial institution that reduced headcount of a team from 60 to 15.
A manager sat me down and explained that the company had had software for 20 years, and throughout that time the headcount had grown, because extra technology across the market had meant that companies launched more and more different and diverse products, and more people had been needed to support them.
If the world stood still, this would be a problem. Instead, people are needed for the new jobs and a myriad of support jobs. Think of mobile phones - how many people are involved in support, development, sales and marketing of phones and the infrastructure of phones, the legislating of phone companies, the sales of pointless clipons.
The more serious problem is that (in the UK) there are areas of deprivation where there is now generational unemployment - children grow up without working parents and see no opportunity. Where areas of central Wales are like deserts - because companies won't move in there.
Toyota didn't succeed because of being 'first-to-market' with anything but attitude. The Japanese learnt a whole lot of lessons from Deming about quality and management that most companies in the west ignored.
The Japanese spend less making a car than some manufacturers spent fixing faults checked afterwards. They follow philosophies like right-first-time and just-in-time.
At one of the manufacturers (Toyota, I think), any worker can stop the production line - the point being, I imagine that if there's a repeating fault, catch it at source and stop wasting time fixing it.
Honda have daily meetings where staff are encouraged to explain the improvements made to their personal work practises so that others in the team can learn.
There's no 'workers' and 'management' at Honda. They are all 'associates'.
As for 'treading water', Toyota and Lexus still are towards the top of JD Power customer satisfaction surveys in the UK.
And personally, I own a Toyota. And IMO it's as well built as a BMW.
I recall seeing a program on BBC TV about www.clickmango.com and how the founders had been offered millions for their company (selling Health and Beauty products online) before the site had even been launched.
All I could think was... what's to stop Boots or me doing that too?
If you have a good internet retailer idea, you either need to catch the market off-guard, be cheaper, offer superb service, be continuously innovative or have a niche with expertise in the products that is hard to get to market.
Re:NDAs are a necessary evil to some environments
on
The Cult of the NDA
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Amazon don't succeed because of having a good idea of "sell books online". Lots of people copied what Amazon did, and from a UK perspective, most of my friends and I mostly use Amazon (with occassional purchases from other stores).
Amazon succeed because of the two old principles - price and service. I've ordered books from amazon.co.uk in the early afternoon, and they've arrived the next day. When I've had problems, they've refunded without quibble.
It's fair to say that being first gave them a headstart, but if you rest on that, you won't last. The only exception is where you own intellectual property, and can continue to coin it in (although many of the most successful inventing companies are those who continue to innovate).
So, therefore the police should never used unmarked cars on traffic patrols?
There's a journey I used to do regularly and people would basically slow down for the cameras and accelerate straight after them. So for about 200 yards per camera, they achieve their objective.
Imagine if speed cameras were small emough that they could fit in a cats-eye and look like any other cats eye. People would have to reduce their speed.
Slashdot Mirror
Carlin is very inciteful, Izzard is surreal. How people try and mix the two is beyond me.
But I'd rather pay $14 for a piece of solid media that I can always resell on ebay for the extra $3, get cover artwork etc.
The cost of providing a download is nothing like the cost of selling a CD. There's retailers margins, restocking fees, duplication costs, the lot. Downloads don't have any of these.
I think maybe 50c per song is about reasonable.
Tux does look cool, because like the Apple logo there's something more Organic about it. Whatever Microsoft do, their logos are corporate and bland. They don't have much choice, because they don't want to scare off the corporates.
The coolness about Linux comes from the attitude people have for it, though. It's the difference between buying Britney Spears and the Grateful Dead.
Any of you programs move, and I'll execute every motherfucking last one of you.
They probably know that in a court of law that a judge would give quite measley damages for file sharing (say $100). That's assuming they don't get a jury who decide to just turn over the RIAA.
That is, once people know 2 or 3 people who say "we used OpenOffice/StarOffice at company X and it was fine and saved us a packet".
OpenOffice isn't going to grow because of IT Directors deciding to use it. It will be people installing it themselves, or trying it at home and finding they like it and forcing the issue upwards.
Personally, I find popups far more objectionable than email, and screen them. I do the same thing for Spam, so that people offering me body enhancements, get rich quick schemes etc can't get through.
Occassionally, though, I get something from people that is targetted to my old company, and quite closely targetted. Generally, I zap these. But I don't object to receiving them, because they are the kind of opportunities that I *might* be interested in. Often, they are not even doing multiple mailings - it's more like someone personally making a cold call.
It's legal, and people use it. I know there are methods of copying ringtones, but people don't. WHY? Because it's easier to download them, and they are cheap enough that people can't be bothered.
My point is (and partly yours), is that people are prepared to pay. Think about it - I know how to wire up networks, but I would rather pay someone and do something else.
Buying CDs is more work than downloading. You have to either order online and wait for it to arrive, or get in a car and drive into town.
What the record companies also have to do is reduce the price of tracks. Plenty of people know that an 11 CD has a lot of costs that a download doesn't like pressing, distribution, shop profit etc. Make it the equivalent of 4-5 per CD and I'll be interested.
Kinda like the flipside of when they made huge profits from overpricing CDs and reselling people material they already owned on vinyl at ridiculous prices.
I'm shedding no tears for the record companies.
And there was me thinking that a lot of artists make their real big money out of touring and t-shirts (some bands made more money out of t-shirts than records).
They're doing a fine job of turning filesharers into the oppressed. Suing 12 year old girls and pensioners is generally not good for PR. Going after professional copyright infringers scores much better, but if they're not careful, they'll lose public trust totally, and the professionals will start getting acquitted by jurors.
By your reckoning, Junk mail by post (or me printing letters and hand delivering) is fine, but email isn't?
Even though posting is environmentally damaging, and lacks the flexibility of email.
I'm convinced that the only reason governments doesn't attack junk mail like they do with spam is that they generally have a stake in the postal service.
I'm not talking about flooding thousands of people, just using email as if I would for paper junk mail.
Let's say that I run a company that provides Real Estate software solutions to companies, and I pick out a couple of hundred estate agents and email them about my new software? AND, if people tell me to remove them, I am responsible enough to do it.
Personally, I don't think of that as Spam. It's targeted quite closely to the people.
For instance, let's say the RIAA makes a big mistake and sues the kid of a hot shot lawyer with plenty of resources, who decides to bite and take the whole thing to a long-winded public jury trial.
Presumably, the RIAA would just drop the case, where what you really need them to do is get a judge/jury who think that suing 12 year old kids for copying music from millionaires deserves either to be thrown out or re-educated with listening to the complete back catalogue of The Fall.
low, meaning what, exactly? I think Henry Ford may have been first with a low-cost manufacturing process (say, compared to those around him).
Toyota certainly run a very efficient (and by result) cheaper manufacturing process.
AFAIK, Toyota is still thriving. And what's important about customer satisfaction surveys is a whole lot. If someone buys a Subaru Impreza and loves it, and the attitude of Subaru dealers, what's the chances of them buying another one?
No-one in the computing field will accept what they say in relation to non-MS products without more data to back it up.
A manager sat me down and explained that the company had had software for 20 years, and throughout that time the headcount had grown, because extra technology across the market had meant that companies launched more and more different and diverse products, and more people had been needed to support them.
If the world stood still, this would be a problem. Instead, people are needed for the new jobs and a myriad of support jobs. Think of mobile phones - how many people are involved in support, development, sales and marketing of phones and the infrastructure of phones, the legislating of phone companies, the sales of pointless clipons.
The more serious problem is that (in the UK) there are areas of deprivation where there is now generational unemployment - children grow up without working parents and see no opportunity. Where areas of central Wales are like deserts - because companies won't move in there.
Because there is nothing to patent, there's no-one to fund the enormous drug testing required to prove that certain natural remedies are OK.
The Japanese spend less making a car than some manufacturers spent fixing faults checked afterwards. They follow philosophies like right-first-time and just-in-time.
At one of the manufacturers (Toyota, I think), any worker can stop the production line - the point being, I imagine that if there's a repeating fault, catch it at source and stop wasting time fixing it.
Honda have daily meetings where staff are encouraged to explain the improvements made to their personal work practises so that others in the team can learn.
There's no 'workers' and 'management' at Honda. They are all 'associates'.
As for 'treading water', Toyota and Lexus still are towards the top of JD Power customer satisfaction surveys in the UK.
And personally, I own a Toyota. And IMO it's as well built as a BMW.
All I could think was... what's to stop Boots or me doing that too?
If you have a good internet retailer idea, you either need to catch the market off-guard, be cheaper, offer superb service, be continuously innovative or have a niche with expertise in the products that is hard to get to market.
Amazon succeed because of the two old principles - price and service. I've ordered books from amazon.co.uk in the early afternoon, and they've arrived the next day. When I've had problems, they've refunded without quibble.
It's fair to say that being first gave them a headstart, but if you rest on that, you won't last. The only exception is where you own intellectual property, and can continue to coin it in (although many of the most successful inventing companies are those who continue to innovate).
Surely that should be 6-sided?
Still pisses on Dances With Wolves.
There's a journey I used to do regularly and people would basically slow down for the cameras and accelerate straight after them. So for about 200 yards per camera, they achieve their objective.
Imagine if speed cameras were small emough that they could fit in a cats-eye and look like any other cats eye. People would have to reduce their speed.
Actually, I think it is - if you do 80mph on a UK motorway, you are unlikely to get caught. Do 40 in a 30mph and you will.