What Makes A Mobile Song Download Worth $1.50 More?
from the mobile-equals-expensive dept
Sprint's making headlines this morning by announcing the first US over-the-air mobile music download service. Apparently the company's target market is impatient rich people that can't wait to get home to download something, as songs will cost $2.50 per track. What is it about mobile download services that make operators think they can charge two and a half times the going rate for regular online downloads? Oh, well, it's dual-delivery, they say, meaning users will get the songs both on their phone and on their computer. Awesome -- so not only does their copy protection make things more difficult, it's used to justify a higher price, too. Here's where everybody's insistence on copy protection really becomes a problem: users won't want to buy new devices that can't play music they already own, and they won't abandon existing cheaper services (and music players they already own) just to be able to buy music through their phone when it costs so much more. Sure, device convergence is nice, but asking users to pay a $1.50 per song premium to carry around one less device really isn't the right way to go about it.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
There is no perfect Apha service
We're not even at the Beta level for these services.
I dislike mobile carries as much as the next guy, especially since there are gonna stall ball wide area IP phones, but this service will pop up some will die like this Sprint service and others will get hot, first we need a usable convergent device, its not the Rokr, its not the Walkman phone, or the Treo or the BB 7100.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: There is no perfect Apha service
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
No Subject Given
This is me bored at work!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: No Subject Given
This is me bored at home.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I cringed when I saw this
$2.50 for a song, that is about $25-30 an album. Even if you take the time to go and buy in a store, the cost of gas and the pain of the geeks behind the counter it is still cheaper to go and get it the traditional way.
I bet within two months people will have ways of getting around their locks, just like people have with everything else.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Stop listening to crap
Who cares anymore? Most commercial music is just a bunch of crap.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Sprint Service
[ link to this | view in chronology ]