131–140 of 228 posts
Look at Netflix, Apple and Google. They are discovering this model but just like the internet, I think the future will reveal itself over the next few years. People will pay for easy distribution and one-click purchasing. Some distribution networks will have a monthly fee for unlimited downloads. Others will have pay-per-download.
Here's the good news: rather than relying on a government-enforced monopoly (copyright, patents, etc.) to make sure that the publishers and innovators get paid, we will rely on direct-to-consumer distribution networks, which compete with one another for publishers and users on things like ease of use and selection.
In a way this is the Cable TV model. Eventually, I think everyone will move to a monthly subscription model for nearly unlimited downloads, like Netflix. That's because when torrent clients (or usenet or whatever else decentralized distribution network there will be) become as easy to use as the centralized ones (and decentralized always wins in the end), it will be just as easy and convenient to get a pirated movie as it is to get it on iTunes. But movies are expensive to make. That's why in the future, I think people will pay monthly fees instead of paying per item.
At the end of the day, there will be a huge number of people subscribed to Netflix-like distribution networks just like there are people subscribed to the internet, and generating "positive externalities" for the cheapskates that get free content through decentralized means. But the system will work. Content creators will flourish!
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Abandoning your users and moving to a platform where there's little money to be made is a questionable proposition for producers. And a lot of users will have second thoughts about moving to a platform they perceive to be distinctly inferior just because Apple are being dicks. Also, as a reminder in case you live in a country where it isn't so: Contracts prevent most of Apple's customers from jumping platforms, and s…
Oh that's gonna change, no doubt. Produces can't ignore iOS, true, they'll suck it up for now, but the mobile market isn't gonna stay this way forever if Apple continues to behave this way. I say 80% of all apps we do, we do now both for iOS and Android. While Android used to be a second class citizen a year or so ago - often just recieving a 'port' of the iPhone version (ok it runs, we're done) - now there's much mo…
But what I find ironic is Microsoft's role in this new platform war. Microsoft and Windows Phone 7 has now taken on the role of what was the stodgy old monopoly that only cared to make products for enterprises: IBM and OS/2.
This. More than the actual policy, what disturbs me is the number of people blindly defending it saying it's in the best interest of the users. It is not. This new subscription mechanism will effectively boot all newspaper/book/music subscription services off the App Store. This is great only if you're one of those people that believes every piece of technology you ever use should only be made by Apple. The only enti…
This. More than the actual policy, what disturbs me is the number of people blindly defending it saying it's in the best interest of the users. It is not. This new subscription mechanism will effectively boot all newspaper/book/music subscription services off the App Store. This is great only if you're one of those people that believes every piece of technology you ever use should only be made by Apple. The only enti…
I expect a couple of big players will announce they're raising their rates 50% due to the new pricing policy. Users will complain, which will put pressure on Apple.
If Apple doesn't back down, over time most third party services will introduce new features that won't be made available on iOS. Considering they'll be making 2-4x as much on all other platforms, they'll naturally create incentives for people to switch.
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The App Store is 70/30 because Apple can take things straight from content producer to customer. When the Apple takes the place of publishing, distribution, inventory, sales, payments and shipping, there's real value for that 30%. This was already addressed in the article. iBooks has a significantly smaller variety of books than Amazon. By becoming the sole gatekeeper for content, Apple is ruling out larger distribut…
iBooks has a significantly smaller variety of books than Amazon. But will this be true for long, now that this particular shoe has dropped? Apple's primary target here is probably Amazon. A company which, incidentally, is no stranger to the art of using a powerful distribution network, an existing customer base, and a DRM-locked e-reader platform as a lever to demand big shares of revenue: http://www.jeremyrossmedia.…
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To be clear, I don't actually care about how much Amazon actually makes on each copy sold. What bothers me is that Apple has seemingly made it economically unviable for distributers to exist in the AppStore at all. This means we have to rely on Apple for content on our iOS devices, and until Apple scales up its content sources, the users are losers in this deal.
If users are truly the losers in this deal, then won't they vote with their wallets?
"And finally, there’s the related notion that anyone who doesn’t like Apple’s rules can pick up and move to another platform, like Android. Which is ridiculous." What? Ridiculous how? This claim is ridiculous. Suck it up and use Android. You'll live. I did.
I did suck it up and switched to Android. It isn't painless. I now like Android better than iOS, but you need to change your muscle memory and learn where various options are. And all of the apps and content you purchased on iOS are no longer accessible, which is the real pain-point. These things weren't difficult for me, but they're a pretty big hurdle for 'normal' people. If Amazon pulls the Kindle app, a user is p…
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If users are truly the losers in this deal, then won't they vote with their wallets?
In what sense? Many (like me) already own iOS devices and are invested in it with all the apps/games/songs/books that we already bought. I probably won't switch platforms based on the absence of a newspaper/music subscription service, but I sure would like the option of having those.
True, some users might have some switching pain, but that's true for most things. Windows to Mac, Xbox to PS3, Kindle to Nook. Lock in is real, but rarely determinative.
Consumers vote with their wallets. The free market is a powerful thing.