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ivan@stellysee.de
| From | Stewart Mason <flamingo@theworld.com> |
| Subject | Re: Universal Music cuts CD prices (warning: industry rant) |
| Date | Thu, 04 Sep 2003 03:59:34 -0400 |
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At 02:48 AM 9/4/2003 -0400, Jaimie Vernon wrote:
>Have these morons ever tried to watch an entire movie with their family on a
>computer screen? Have these people ever tried using a headset to listen to
>their favourite album on a Pentium IV that's got WINDOWS XP installed (with
>CD players that have external headphone outputs, but no internal
>connectivity?). You can't do either.
Well said, and even more importantly, I think they're also seriously
overestimating the market reach of broadband connectivity, which is going
to be essential for this to work. Me, I'm all about the new toys, and
while I'm almost never the first-on-the-block guy, I'm usually second or
third. I mean, my family bought their first VCR in 1976, and I'm already
on my third DVD player, fourth if you count the one on my computer that, as
Jaimie points out, I *never* use. During the day, my wife and I
communicate primarily through text messaging on our mobiles while we're at
work, AND I have several different freelance jobs that simply would not
exist if I didn't have an Internet connection, plus you have no idea how
badly I crave either Tivo or an iPod or both. So I'm pretty much the
target market.
I don't have broadband. I don't see myself getting broadband in the
foreseeable future. Because I don't NEED broadband. 56K is sufficient for
all of my downloading and uploading needs, even given my eMusic addiction
(and, because I happen to live all of about six blocks away from my ISP, I
actually log on consistently at 54.9K, which is about as fast as telephone
lines can transmit info), and I can't think of anything on the horizon that
will make me need to download anything faster, especially not at $50 to $75
a month when my current ISP only charges $19.89!
Now, if *I* feel that way, I'm pretty sure that if I asked my four sibs --
middle-class professionals scattered in suburbs and college towns from Iowa
to Texas to Oregon -- if they were planning on getting broadband
connections, they would look at me as if I asked if they were going to get
genital piercings. If I asked my parents...well, my parents are dead, so
their media needs are quite small...if I asked my in-laws, then, they would
say "We have enough trouble figuring out the remote for the digital cable
box." If I asked my uncle Cayton and aunt Patsy if they were going to get
broadband connections, they would say, "We live in Seminole frickin'
Oklahoma, boy. Even dialing AOL is a long-distance call."
Remember, cable TV came on the scene in the 1960s, and the town I grew up
in -- a fairly large college town -- wasn't wired for cable until 1983.
Hell, New York City didn't get cable until, what, 1986 or something like
that? Even then, not everyone bothers to get cable once it's available; my
wife got cable for the very first time in her life at some point after she
met me, and we only met in 1994. As much as we may think of internet
connections as not only basic needs but inalienable human rights -- hands
up, whose first thought during the blackout was "Oh, crap, now I can't
check my email"? -- we're not the majority on this. The market reach of
the internet, especially broadband internet, simply isn't large enough for
the Chicken Little scenario to take hold within at least the next five to
seven years. The music conglomerates love their profits too much to
effectively write off a huge section of their potential audience.
Even if downloads do become the standard in the next five years, so what?
Vinyl supposedly died nearly 20 years ago, but you can still buy turntables
at any electronics store, and every time I go into Virgin or Twisted
Village, I see more LPs and singles. Pretty good for a format that's
supposedly more dead than Paul Wolfowitz's credibility.
S
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