Jericho wrote
Basic economics apply from here...if the marginal cost is zero, price must be close to zero as well. Why then, do I have to pay $0.99 for a copy of a file?
Economics says that price is defined by supply & demand ... it's got
nothing to do with cost ... marginal or otherwise.
Theory says if someone is making a "super profit" (because price is way higher than cost), then competitors will enter the market and drive the price down to an "appropriate" level.
I actually believe that the vast majority of people are intrinsically good and honest and will
not steal something just because they can.
We can all think of enough examples where people could steal stuff but just don't.
Most of us like to sleep well at night knowing we've paid for what we have.
Don't you have a life dream? or is your life's dream to amass 100TB of pirated music. (I say that tongue in cheek, but I actually know people who work hard at obtaining as much music as possible for no apparent reason. Most of it they don't even like)
There is a bit of a game in town to see who can collect the most music for bragging rights.
It's good for sales of hard drives.
As you say, most of the music won't even be liked ... or listened to.
It is debatable whether something like digital music has actually been "stolen" if it is never consumed.
It's all about perceived value.
The majority of people will pay a fair price for a fair service.
A better measure (impossible to obtain) would be what music is being listened to ... for enjoyment ... that should have been paid for, but wasn't.
Probably opens up or extends the industry of "Music-as-a-Service".
i.e. no-one actually buys or possesses music in their own warehouse.
They just stream music over the internet or some such thing and pay each time they listen to it.
Could even have a number of trial listens to see if they like it.
And the price is set at the right level !!
If kids are prepared to pay 1.50 for an sms, they will be prepared to pay, say, 5c to listen to a song.
Hey - even link it to cellphone contracts which they are used to paying ...
There's a lot of sense to this - musicians would get paid for music that people actually listen to.
Special case of the rule that people get paid for what generates utility.
If everyone in the world paid 5c every time they listened to the Beatles "Imagine" ... they'd gladly pay it, and the Beatle's brand would continue to pull in massive money.
