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Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days

buy.louisck.net

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Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days

#41

Post by jmtame »

syeren wrote: post #20
jmtame wrote: post #12

When Trent Reznor released Niggy Tardust, 28,322 paid $5 for it, which was 20% of the total who downloaded the album freely. Were there any other albums he released for $5? Granted, this was Saul Williams' album and Trent appeared on it; it wasn't a Halo album.

GHOSTS I-IV (Halo 26) and The Slip (Halo 27) were both hugely successful.

I forgot he released those in that format, and you're right; he really hit some impressive numbers with that experiment: "A week after the album's release, the official Nine Inch Nails site reported over 750,000 purchase and download transactions, amassing over $1.6 million in sales." (Ghosts I-IV)

Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days

#42

Post by jahmed »

wdewind wrote: post #26
po wrote: post #19

I think by releasing the sales figures he actually runs the risk of decreasing sales. I think there is probably a segment of the population that would feel bad about not paying for the video but now that he announced how much money he made their guilt over stealing from a poor artist will subside. It's a bit hard to keep people sympathetic if you've announced that you just made a nice profit. I'm sure at this point h…

You're missing the price aspect: at $5 it's hardly even worth it to torrent it when I can have a zero hassle download experience.

People pay for convenience. I wonder how many people used their two streams and would pay another $1 to stream it again.

Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days

#43

Post by patio11 »

callmeed wrote: post #34

$32K for a site that does checkout with PayPal!? That sounds nuts to me, even with over-planning for high traffic. FYI I recently posted a RoR app that lets you sell a file with Stripe: https://github.com/2tablespoons/Thylacine

You're thinking from the perspective of "geek who could actually implement this." Try thinking from the perspective of "entertainment personality who doesn't want their personal brand tarnished when their website blows up in their face and is willing to pay for surety of that."

Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days

#45

Post by gillygize »

citricsquid wrote: post #32
lukev wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. I've never bought a comedy DVD in my life, because frankly, an hour of humor isn't worth $15 + the overhead of receiving a package and storing a physical artifact in perpetuity. But $5, I can have it in seconds, and forget about it until I want it again? Different story entirely. So I bought it. I don't think I did it because it was an experiment - if every comedian released stuff like this, I feel like I'd…

You're proving my entire point. You bought this because it's an experiment, you wanted to validate the experiment.

But there is also the lower price to consider. Even if the rarity of the event brought more purchases, with $5 vs the $15 or $20 it would have cost in a more tradition method of sales, the price alone would certainly bring in some customers who would not have paid the higher price.

Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days

#46

Post by [deleted] »

Lagged2Death wrote: post #24
citricsquid wrote: post #13

I really hope people don't turn this into a "Louis CK did it, so you should publish without DRM!". I agree with the anti-drm sentiment a lot of people hold, but this experiment only worked because it's "rare". Every time something like this is done people use it as evidence of the viability of the idea (Radiohead's pay what you want comes to mind too) and that really shouldn't be done. The only reason I heard about t…

Isn't iTunes all DRM-free MP3 these days?

[deleted]

Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days

#47

Post by jmonegro »

tempire wrote: post #30
jmonegro wrote: post #18

Is it me or do I find $32,000 for that website a bit too much?

Indeed. I thought the same thing, but I suspect he's including a design firm that tested out multiple versions of the site, backend infrastructure to handle potential load, support to handle issues in a timely manner should they come up, and maybe his personal time.

When you put it that way, sounds about right.

Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days

#48

Post by the_cat_kittles »

wdewind wrote: post #26
po wrote: post #19

I think by releasing the sales figures he actually runs the risk of decreasing sales. I think there is probably a segment of the population that would feel bad about not paying for the video but now that he announced how much money he made their guilt over stealing from a poor artist will subside. It's a bit hard to keep people sympathetic if you've announced that you just made a nice profit. I'm sure at this point h…

You're missing the price aspect: at $5 it's hardly even worth it to torrent it when I can have a zero hassle download experience.

exactly! also, when its that low, the good feeling of actually buying something is not overshadowed by the bad feeling of spending money, since its so little money, at least for me at 5$. In response to the initial comment- I was indirectly prompted to buy this because of the post he made... I don't know why, but after I read it, I bought the show. Probably because I want the experiment to work.

Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days

#49

Post by weaksauce »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #37

I'm glad he made some money on it. His mind will be blown when the 'long tail' kicks in (people buying this video 3 years from now, still). He mentions "This [$200,000] is less than I would have been paid by a large company to simply perform the show and let them sell it to you, but they would have charged you about $20 for the video." Here is the part where this can go off the rails. So the long tail will hit, peopl…

Trent is not part of radiohead; Radiohead and Trent(nine inch nails with ghosts) did the same thing but at different times.
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