Sunday, December 25, 2011
Digital prices
It's amazing how digital pricing shows better than ever how arbitrary prices really are. Some services charge eight dollars for a 24-hour movie rental. That's crazy when you often can buy it on disc for less. And then on the other hand, I have just signed up for a Kindle subscription (now on iOS too) for Fantasy And Science Fiction, a magazine, for 99 pence a month! Now that's what I call a reasonable price! Perhaps even too low for their own good, but we'll see how things shake out over the years.
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4 comments:
Then there's the case of books where online sellers often sell soft- or hard-cover books for somewhat less than the ebook versions.
You are confusing digital with file streaming. The content on those physical discs is just as digital as that of the online movie rental service.
As to your example, the movie is probably about million times the amount of bits than the magazine. Also, I'm pretty sure the movies studio royalties are on a different level compared to the scifi mag.
Still, I'm sure the movie rental prices will come down soon.
Sure, sure.
I was just struck to see that some movies, big titles too, I can rent on my Kindle Fire for just one dollar! (Or rather I could if I were in the US.) So it was a bit accidental that I chose a movie for the expensive example. Some digital magazines are way too expensive too, while some are amazingly cheap.
Small publishers are experimenting with prices. The trick is finding how much people are willing to pay for a service, and then restructure the distribution model around that.
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