This does seem to be price fixing on Apple's part. Also, this seem to be an anti-competitive deal.
Steve Jobs emails that show how to win a negotiation
171–176 of 176 posts
Re: Steve Jobs emails that show how to win a negotiation
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's simpler than that. Most people don't have a clue about DRM. What they know is if they want to listen to music they go buy an iPod and buy music on iTunes. It's more about brand recognition IMO.
They may not have a clue about DRM, but what they do understand is, "If I switch to , I won't be able to use it to listen to my existing music collection, or read any of the books I already bought, or run any of the apps I downloaded?" And that is all caused by DRM.
Except iPod remained just as dominant even after going DRM-free, so that doesn't appear to be the issue.
Re: Steve Jobs emails that show how to win a negotiation
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're different, sure; I prefer staring at the lightbulb, apparently.
You guys are funny. It's simple: Kindles are better for books and iPads are better for magazines and color.
> Kindles are better for books
Better in that they're worse, you mean?
Re: Steve Jobs emails that show how to win a negotiation
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
They write content that people (yourself included, apparently) find interesting.
Yes, but I mean... is the quality of good material from this kind of sites increasing for some reason? That's my impression. Wordpress alternatives? Etc.
Ah, sorry. I'm suspicious by nature, and I've seen comments similar to yours in the past implying some kind of shill activity or other stupidity.
No idea why. Maybe these things tend to go in spurts - one good article leads people to read the site, leading to more exposure and submissions.
Re: Steve Jobs emails that show how to win a negotiation
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
"In Steve's world, Apple's raising the price by 30% and then taking 30% is a benefit to the customer and not Apple" The price was already $12.99. The fact that Amazon was willing to eat a large amount of that price on a tiny volume of ebooks in the short term doesn't mean that would have favored consumers in the long term. Today, with agency pricing, the average price of an ebook is around $8. Hasn't that benefited c…
> Today, with agency pricing, the average price of an ebook is around $8. Hasn't that benefited consumers? Thanks to the settlement, Amazon can now [again] charge what it would like and the result was an immediate drop for titles by publishers that settled. Consumers were hurt by Apple and have benefited from the DOJ's case against Apple's business practices. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/80961.html > The…
I'll take your word that that's what happened, but that cite doesn't really support the claim. I think we all agree there was a settlement and those contracts were cancelled.
There may have been some specific things in the Apple model that were anti-consumer (perhaps there were price floors, it's not clear) and if so good riddance but the linked negotiation seems to be indicate that the major points of contention were:
(1) the migration away from wholesale pricing (publisher sells online stores X copies of an ebook, do whatever they want with them);
(2) publishers wanting to force higher prices but Apple insisting on a price ceiling. The MFN was explicitly tied to this in the first email from Harper Collins.
(3) Apple's commission.
What specifically about the app store pricing model hurts consumers?
Does a wholesale model makes sense for digital goods?
Does anyone really believe that Amazon was going to keep losing money on ebooks at the same scale as before when they were 2% of volume?
Re: Steve Jobs emails that show how to win a negotiation
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
They may not have a clue about DRM, but what they do understand is, "If I switch to , I won't be able to use it to listen to my existing music collection, or read any of the books I already bought, or run any of the apps I downloaded?" And that is all caused by DRM.
Except iPod remained just as dominant even after going DRM-free, so that doesn't appear to be the issue.
The iPod isn't as dominant as ever, iTunes is only partially DRM-free (many songs still aren't available for sale that way), existing songs in your collection don't get unlocked, and users have to either pay per song or subscribe to iTunes Match to unlock them.