“Analysis For worse, the online media market continues to fracture into the haves and the have nots – those that have partnered with Apple and those that have not,” Ashlee Vance writes for The Register. “Media companies baffling the public with their ineptitude is nothing new. Apple had to drag the labels kicking and screaming to iTunes. Now, Apple has had to show the mogul crowd how to do a subscription service right by this week offering a discount on TV shows and letting consumers keep their programs. Why Napster, Real and the RIAA think making music disappear at the end of an expensive subscription will prove attractive is anyone’s guess.”
“With that in mind, the media giants who have partnered with Apple – particularly for TV downloads – must thank God that Steve Jobs exists,” Vance writes. “The pigopolists would never figure this stuff out on their own. They would never have agreed to meet in one place – iTunes – without the charismatic Jobs showing them the way. Companies like ABC and NBC would have taken years to push their TV shows onto the interweb and at a somewhat sensible price.”
“Apple has managed to repeat its tradition not of discovering something new but of doing something obvious first,” Vance writes. “Consumers… will grow more and more loathe of the idea behind bundled cable as a result of Apple’s work. The subscription price for The Daily Show – $9.99 for 16 episodes – still seems high. But you can imagine a day when you pick, say, 10 TV shows for that price. Apple downloads them for you, burns them to a DVD and off you go… We imagine that a couple of up-starts will rise and give Apple a real challenge at their own game. That tends to be the way technology-heavy markets operate. Such variety should be welcomed. If this doesn’t happen, the media companies will only have themselves to blame for allowing Apple to control their TV shows as well as their music. Don’t depend on a company as woefully inept as Google. Create a joint venture capital arm to develop independent media warehouses. Invent something great and give it away via open source. Do something. Do anything. Just don’t whine about your own ineptitude. We’ve grown so very tired of that.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “J Alex” for the heads up.]
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>”With that in mind, the media giants who have partnered with Apple –
> particularly for TV downloads – must thank God that Steve Jobs exists”
whereas, by contrast, most readers on this forum would tend to thank Steve Jobs that God exists.
i am somewhat surprised by some of the posts here condemning google for ‘selling out’ to the chinese. if i am not mistaken, some of the ‘usual suspects’ who patrol these shores were, only a few days ago, extolling the virtues of greed being good, and that in corporate america $ IS god.
so here we have an american corporation going after the $ just like they are ‘supposed to do’ and getting slammed for it.
curious.
btw, rightly or wrongly, agree with it or not, china has certain rules. if you want to play in their garden you have to play abiding to their rules. if you want to take a moral or ethical stance, fine. but you definitely can’t have it both ways
MW : few
> If our forefathers knew what the USA has become with “Freedom of Speech”,
> and not allowing anyone to mention God in public, they’d have written
> our Constitution differently.
You’re right with the loss of freedom of speech.
But you’re wrong with the god thing!
Just listen to 5 minutes of Bush speek (or rather babble…) and you will hear more “god here, god there,…” than “Allah” in 5 minutes of Osama hatespeak!
Though I hate the Register this looks looks like a pretty sensible bit of writing…
I also checked for ‘pigopolist’ and didn’t find it. I wouldn’t be surprised if in future editions we do find it as it could well catch on..
..mainly of course as a preface to the RIAA.
I try not to mention God in public; just as I try not to fart in public.
P.S. If you don’t here from me again, it’s because I’ve been struck down by lightning.
Television shows are a perishable product. The idea of buying a show seems ridiculous. However, purchasing films directly for burning seems more reasonable.
God does not exist.
Steve Jobs does exist.
Ergo, Steve Jobs cannot be God.
Mac user.
Question. What’s the “interweb”?