Are There Any Companies Not Selling Music Online?
from the compatibility-issues? dept
Well, the floodgates have opened on setting up downloadable music stores, and they're not going to shut any time soon. Late yesterday came the news that MTV was launching a music download store, and today you can add Wal-Mart to the list. Of course, with each of these companies coming up with their own applications (sometimes competing with each other) and different, non-compatible formats, you have to wonder if this makes sense. If they all at least agreed on a format, and the ability to play the songs on any software or device (mp3s anyone?) it would make sense. Unfortunately, there are greedy executives who are drooling over the potential of "locking in" customers of any music service - and forgetting that their customers want the ability to do what they want with music they've purchased. Having a hundred different download stores, each with different software and/or formats doesn't help anyone, and will lead to plenty of failed music ventures. In the meantime, when will the price war start?
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Don't think the margins are that high for the downloads so it probably won't matter a lot.
What you probably will see is the semblance of a napster like client of old which will hook into all the sites offering music and show you the best price for a song or album with the option to buy it.
So Mike, I guess this is the idea of music sharing in the business world ... multiple sites that offer the same product with pricing being the issue.
How well this mimics the current retail environment. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
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