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The easy answer to this is to raise prices. We need to raise the price of digital goods if we want to move forward as a post-industrial society. I pay $36 a yea

The easy answer to this is to raise prices. We need to raise the price of digital goods if we want to move forward as a post-industrial society. I pay $36 a year for Pandora, I would pay $72. $3 a month is an insanely good deal. Before Napster I would easily spend $30 a month on music. Society needs more money in artists hands, because the robots are coming to take away more jobs, and we can offset some of that by reducing the labor supply by allowing more people to earn a living creating digital goods. Many of you will say that most aren't good enough to be pro artists. I say that so many more would become good enough through deliberate practice if financial viability wasn't nigh impossible. Capitalism as we know it will not survive zero-priced digital goods, robotics and other forms of automation. Deflation is a specter over all our heads. Wise nations will look for ways to reduce the supply of labor, instead of an insane push for ever higher employment levels.

cdh 14y ago
Without going near your comments on Capitalism, I don't think Spotify's situation is as clear-cut as you do. Why would I pay $20, $15, or even $11, when I can get the exact same service from at least a dozen other companies for $10/month or less? (Rhapsody, Zune, Slacker, Rdio, etc.) If they raise prices at all, they're likely to lose a significant number of subscribers. If they raise prices and somehow keep those subscribers, the record companies may very well just milk them for the difference in increased licensing costs.
- willholloway 14y ago
  All of the other companies need to pay licensing costs as well, and I believe the current licensing costs are unsustainably low. In the early years of the internet everyone got very excited about free. Free music, movies, and information. I think that right now society is collectively learning the same lesson so many developers have learned and posted about here. Free customers are the worst customers. Charge more. Inflation is virtuous. Deflation is a downward spiral into the abyss.

cdh 14y ago

Without going near your comments on Capitalism, I don't think Spotify's situation is as clear-cut as you do. Why would I pay $20, $15, or even $11, when I can get the exact same service from at least a dozen other companies for $10/month or less? (Rhapsody, Zune, Slacker, Rdio, etc.) If they raise prices at all, they're likely to lose a significant number of subscribers. If they raise prices and somehow keep those subscribers, the record companies may very well just milk them for the difference in increased licensing costs.

willholloway 14y ago
All of the other companies need to pay licensing costs as well, and I believe the current licensing costs are unsustainably low. In the early years of the internet everyone got very excited about free. Free music, movies, and information. I think that right now society is collectively learning the same lesson so many developers have learned and posted about here. Free customers are the worst customers. Charge more. Inflation is virtuous. Deflation is a downward spiral into the abyss.