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by tptacek
4667 days ago
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Wait, hold on. Exactly why is it legitimate to feel outrage over entities that assign bad prices for luxury goods like music? In our economic system, those entities should either (a) progress us towards discovering the real value of those goods to their consumers (ie, they were worth more than people offended by the price thought), or (b) be punished by the marketplace. Exactly nobody is harmed by an entity that charges $100 for a single song. Where does the "outrage" enter the picture? Are you sure you're being rational here? |
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Speaking for a moment only about the everyday man's necessities of life (luxuries are not included; food, shelter - and music (i.e. culture) are), it seems to me that letting reign that tentative and fickle process of price discovery is an act that can potentially cost dearly. When biodiesel fuel was once thought to be a promising source of energy a few years back, prices of food promptly shot up and this resulted in the poor having difficultly affording food.
Now, I am aware this makes for a tenuous argument if we're talking about music, but I don't think it is outright inapplicable. Consider not the one-off luxury item, consider items you expect mass public to consume in large quantities -- consider itunes, a highly scaled platform which can now just sit and take in money. Indeed itunes bears a responsibility by virtue of it being a highly scaled avenue to buy music from -- unlike a local store which can only dream of seeing such business traffic, to charge reasonable prices. I think any such platform is obliged by social responsibility to charge a reasonable price. That in a purely capitalistic economy this is not a reasonable expectation, I think is one of its great faults.
tptacek, I'm sure I am being rational here, but what value is my confirmation of this to you? :) I have elsewhere on HN made note of my socialistic views, I recognize it is not proper of me to digress into vague political tangents (they're the worst), and I apologize for having done that, I'll stop here.