Good Heavens. Billboard must have broken out its abacus as it was calculating this little number: songs on the iTunes Store that saw their price jump from $0.99 to $1.29 have dropped in chart position. Could it be that, gasp, people saw the $1.29 price for that damn Lady Gaga song—if you’ve been following this story with us, I always (unfairly) single out Lady Gaga; she’s the archetype for pop music—and thought to themselves, “Nah, no thanks.”
And, as you might expect, songs that were $0.99 jumped up in chart position.
Keep in mind that, as a result of the higher price, the record labels (or is it music labels? I keep forgetting.) may still make more money than they did when everything was at $0.99. Because who doesn’t get all giddy cheering on faceless corporations as they make profit hand over fist?
So, no real surprise here.
The music industry will end up killing themselves. But I’d like to quote from a french pircacy community:
“In 1979, the music industry sued everyone in the cassete buisness because they were scared of piracy
In 1979, the video industry sued everyone in the video tape buisness because they were scared of piracy
In 2009, both industries sued everyone sharing torrents because they were scared of piracy
Where will this go? Unless you’re blind, you would have noticed that Tape/Cd/mp3 sales trippled after their releases, and so did vhs’s/DVDs/Blu-Rays and even seats in the cinema”
It will be interesting to see whether the higher prices affect total sales for a song or only relative sales. It’s impressive that during a recession Apple raises prices and now (apparently) has people looking at their original prices as “bargain” songs.
Will be kind of cool if they ever introduce real-time variable pricing that reflects demand, such that every song reaches a sort of equilibrium price, in the same way a stock moves. Watch bands compete to get their songs played on big TV shows to create a quick surge in demand.
That’s a great Idea! Would be fun and interesting. Maybe one day…
I for one won’t be purchasing individual songs from i-tunes. I thin 1.29 is too expensive when compare to CD prices. Maybe I’m wrong but…
What are iTunes doing? They have got so many customers and all they seem to want to do is annoy them! There are a thousand other websites offering mp3 downloads a lot cheaper than iTunes do, especially now the price has risen. iTunes need to realise that people are going to start looking for cheaper alternatives, and that their price rise WILL affect a lot more than their profits, like the charts positions for example.
Why would anyone pay $1.29 for chart music? This is clearly a scheme to just get more cash – they know chart music sells more copies, so they are going to make more money on the top sellers than the older tracks. iTunes seem to be getting worse at what they do.
The record company’s squeezed Apple, they feel they should be getting more for chart hits.Since airplay’s dead and they can’t figure out how to sell albums, lets just screw the public again. This should have been a wake up call to start selling albums and songs in various formats an attempt to develop careers, not a last ditch effort to try and make some quick money. The public doesn’t need them but they still need the public.
I think it’s ridicuouls how they can increase the price 30 cents. You can get on Walmart.com and they have songs starting at 64 cents!
This was a dumb business move. Apple has lot out approx $20 in revenue in the last month from me alone. Imagine what it would do across the board. I dont believe it when they say revenue is up.
?? I just went to iTunes to purchase a couple songs and balked at the 1.29 price. Count that as another lost sale, I am not paying more than 99 cents. Maybe I should go to Wal-Mart.
If we all stop buying from I-tunes, maybe they will listen to their customers, unless they want to go out of business. A 30% increase? I will not pay it either. It is the principle of the thing. We have to pay 30cents if gas goes up, we do not have to pay for I-tunes! Get real!
HAHAHA What a joke by apple. These guys seriously have got to get it together. Let’s see, a recession, a 30% price increase in a non essential enterainment forum. Come to think of it they made stupid moves with the ipod as well, something else I bought then just took back because you can’t get music onto it unless you use THEIR iTunes crap. What happened to drag and drop? With so much competition popping up everywhere why make such an infuriating gesture? Fk apple, Fk the music corps and long live the torrent.
they should have just stuck with 99 cents per song. i used to shop there all the time, but i am going to go back to getting CD’s from stores. i think people should boycott the 1.29 iTunes price and if Apple and iTunes realize that they are loosing money, they might drop the price back down to 99 cents.
We should all go to Zune. Unless the price changed, did it? I remember seeing a commercial for 15 dollars a month and unlimited downloads. Haven’t seen that in a while though. I officially hate iTunes and I wish I wasn’t typing this on an iPhone… What’s worse is that I also have a MacBook… -sigh-
Attention Steve Jobs:
I just wanted to express my disappointment with your recent rate hikes on certain songs. I was always skeptical about online purchasing of music, but your trademark 99-cent cap is what won me over. Now that it seems you have thrown that out the window, I will no longer be purchasing music through your medium.
Instead I will be joining the masses disappointed I tune users back to Best Buy and other music stores that have managed to stay afloat. I would rather not stick around to watch 1.29 rise to 1.49 than to 1.89 and so on. I may end up paying a little more in the end but it comforts me greatly to know I have a physical hard copy in my possession that can not be accidentally erased or is extremely difficult to transfer to a new computer when your old system is dying out. For what its worth, I did enjoy the convenience of the download however my experience with digital downloading is over. I will attribute this to the greed of the Beatles and their feeling that their crumby old music is worth more than a buck. It’s not.
Thank you,
David M