| I think it is a lot cheaper, especially if you consider that you are not forced to buy the tracks you don't want (which is the point of the article). However, a lot of the cost reductions come from increased efficiency. Apart from the fact that record companies don't have to produce and ship physical goods, which is huge in itself, we also got rid of the need for humans to search, pick and curate new artists. Artists or their managers can now publish directly in the digital stores and a ranking algorithm is all that is needed to decide if it becomes visible or not. In the past, the human curators kind of ended up in a position of natural monopoly where they would get to pick winners and pocket most of the profits at the expense of artists who were forced to sign unfavorable contracts to get visibility. The fact that there is less money and lower 'sales numbers' in certain parts of the industry might be a sign of success of its most innovative side, the ability to provide more music at lower prices. What would be interesting to see is the effect on artists in all of this. When I buy music I would like to not be paying for a huge and inefficient, production, distribution, curation and marketing layer. I want the money to go as much as possible to the artist. |
Wait, who are you to pronounce on the efficiency of this layer? Do you think that production and marketing don't create value? Several of the artists that pioneered the 'pay what you want' approach have come to the conclusion that they were better off with that stuff in place:
http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/4/4054634/musics-pay-what-you...