6 ms·

I feel almost guilty admitting it, but these behaviour seems completely natural to me. Paper books, music on CDs. Seems to me much more rational to buy somethin

by krick 12y ago

I feel almost guilty admitting it, but these behaviour seems completely natural to me. Paper books, music on CDs. Seems to me much more rational to buy something like this, than buying (heck, it's not even buying, it's more like renting by some weird license!) array of bytes, that can be deleted by some Apple or Amazon from your device, and doing so for nearly the same money as if you buy real book or CD! It's not japanese who are crazy, it's more like western people are totally irrational and insane! And, well, I'm a bit missing these times when you could exchange CDs with your friends and all that kind of stuff. But dismiss it. However ability to not have CD-ROM in your notebook is major bonus. And size of portable music players as well. I wonder if paper books are as expensive in Japan as in the western countries.

jaredmcateer 12y ago
I have no love lost for CDs, but I still buy Vinyl, and the best thing about Vinyl is that the majority of new albums also come with a digital download, best of both worlds. At home I listen to the Vinyl for the experience but on the go I have my phone with MP3s that no one can touch but me.
- myrandomcomment 12y ago
  I do the same thing, trying to buy most new stuff on vinyl that has the digital downloads. I also have a ton of older records - Opera and Jazz mostly. I also have a large collection of 80s New Wave / Dance 12 inch remixes, most of which you cannot find digitally. The Recordman in Redwood City, CA is a good place to find stuff.
jdminhbg 12y ago
Amazon and Apple both sell DRM-free audio files, which is no different than buying and ripping a CD, minus having the superfluous physical disc lying around. They can't be deleted from your device.
- intopieces 12y ago
  This is true, but the hard-drive music player seems to be on its way out now as well, with the iPod Classic gone and Apple moving toward the streaming market or "cloud" model, where they have ultimate control over the user's access to the content. While I'm not a CD junkie, I find myself clinging to the model you mention, because I am not eager to hand over control to a company that continually required me to pay. For those are a fan of Spotify: you pay $10/month for access to millions(?) of songs, but what happens when Spotify goes under, or gets bought? You've been paying for, let's say, 3 years - $360 - and what do you have to show for it? I much prefer sinking that amount of money into backing up my music collection.
  - inclemnet 12y ago
    > You've been paying for, let's say, 3 years - $360 - and what do you have to show for it? The answer is 3 years of music enjoyment. Honestly, this seems like a terrible example - I don't think anybody pays for spotify on the basis that they will have the music forever, it's very explicitly a rental service. Instead, people pay because it's the most convenient (including being cheap) way to access the music they want. > While I'm not a CD junkie, I find myself clinging to the model you mention, because I am not eager to hand over control to a company that continually required me to pay This doesn't really make sense either. If you don't like rental services, don't pay for them, buy the albums just like you always did - it's easy to buy DRM free mp3s nowadays.
    - dublinben 12y ago
      At $120/year, Spotify is much more expensive than most people's annual music budget.[0] It might be convenient, but it certainly isn't cheap. At least with individual album purchases, you are building 'equity' in a music collection $10 at a time. [0] https://recode.net/2014/03/18/the-price-of-music/ https://recode.net/2014/03/18/the-price-of-music/
      - inclemnet 12y ago
        Then those people probably don't want to pay for spotify. I didn't mean to imply that spotify is automatically a good deal for everyone, obviously it isn't, but I think it's plausibly a good deal for a lot of people. > but it certainly isn't cheap I'll admit, I was speaking more from the perspective of listening to a lot of music. For instance, the combined purchase value of all the albums in my spotify playlists far exceeds the total amount I ever spent on spotify, though I haven't used it for a while. I'm sure there are many people for whom this is true, even if they aren't a large proportion of the whole population. In general you're right of course, 'cheap' is a matter of perspective. Spotify is not cheap for everyone, but it is potentially cheap for plenty of people. I still don't see the problem with this.
Daiz 12y ago
>It's not japanese who are crazy, it's more like western people are totally irrational and insane! The main thing that's crazy is really the digital distribution systems available to us. If all we have is some DRM-crippled products, then you can't actually buy things digitally - merely rent them for an undefined period of time. Luckily, there are at least some things you can buy without DRM (music does pretty decently in this regard, games somewhat), but on the whole the situation is rather gloomy (especially with anything video). And while I do like the catalog rental model that services like Netflix offer with their subscriptions, at the very least I would like to be able to digitally buy the things I really like, which is flat-out impossible in many cases.
k-mcgrady 12y ago
>> "heck, it's not even buying, it's more like renting by some weird license!)" Nearly all the music I've bought online in the last 5 years has been DRM free which means I can play it on any device and nobody can delete it. I bought it, I own it. It's not rented.As for sharing with you friends that doesn't happen very often but mainly I think because it's easier for them to just get their own copy than meet me to borrow mine. When it was more common to borrow media from people that was not only because it was free but because they would have to travel to a shop, and if that shop didn't have it, travel to another and another until they found it. Now they can own it in seconds.
kreek 12y ago
My rational to it is that I have enough clutter, in my house and on my hard drive, that I don't need to add to it with stacks of CDs or GBs of hard drive space. You and the Japanese should meditate on the nature of impermanence, everything in the physical world is rented so your music should be too ;)
ics 12y ago
Prices are generally higher than in North America. Most of the CDs that I would buy in the US for around $15-20 is anywhere from ¥2450-5400. Additionally, most of the "extras" are just advertising fluff. Books are priced similarly to the US, but the majority of them are Japan's version of trade paperbacks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunkobon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunkobon) – thin paper cover, cheap thin pages, small format, and wrapped at the register with an additional protective cover (usually with the store logo). Nicer hardcover books seem to be priced about the same as in the US. The biggest thing going for the whole industry (despite everything feeling so cheap) is that there is a book for everything. Manuals for open source software, a biography for some barely known musician, etc.– and you can actually find them browsing a regular Sanseido, Yurindo, or Kinokuniya.
jccalhoun 12y ago
I've come to hate physical media and I rarely buy it. Music is drm-free now and when I buy ebooks I only buy ones where I can crack the drm so I don't have to worry about licenses being revoked or drm servers going offline. I've also moved a lot so carrying a couple hard drives is much easier than boxes and boxes of books and cds - let alone people that collect vinyl.
- rsl7 12y ago
  Often buying a used CD on amazon is cheaper than buying the album on itunes or amazon download. Sad but true. I admit I also enjoy the packaging for music I care about.
Istof 12y ago
The digital copies definitely should be cheaper when you consider the cost of producing and shipping CDs... which is why I download them from Youtube since apparently artists get paid this way (thank you youtube-dl)
chaostheory 12y ago
> and doing so for nearly the same money as if you buy real book or CD! A lot of e-books are either half off or more than their physical counterparts. Also when you're buying technical books, their electronic versions will get updated and you buy and get access to e-books in draft form which is pretty useful for bleeding edge tech. It's also pretty cool to be able to fit your entire library in your pocket. Everything said, I still would never buy the digital version of art books and coffee table books and I still own the physical copies of the books I really like. I tend to buy digital copies more as an accessory.
pix64 12y ago
Buying a CD is still buying a license. You don't own the data in either case.

by krick 12y ago

jaredmcateer 12y ago

I have no love lost for CDs, but I still buy Vinyl, and the best thing about Vinyl is that the majority of new albums also come with a digital download, best of both worlds. At home I listen to the Vinyl for the experience but on the go I have my phone with MP3s that no one can touch but me.

myrandomcomment 12y ago
I do the same thing, trying to buy most new stuff on vinyl that has the digital downloads. I also have a ton of older records - Opera and Jazz mostly. I also have a large collection of 80s New Wave / Dance 12 inch remixes, most of which you cannot find digitally. The Recordman in Redwood City, CA is a good place to find stuff.

jdminhbg 12y ago

Amazon and Apple both sell DRM-free audio files, which is no different than buying and ripping a CD, minus having the superfluous physical disc lying around. They can't be deleted from your device.

intopieces 12y ago
This is true, but the hard-drive music player seems to be on its way out now as well, with the iPod Classic gone and Apple moving toward the streaming market or "cloud" model, where they have ultimate control over the user's access to the content. While I'm not a CD junkie, I find myself clinging to the model you mention, because I am not eager to hand over control to a company that continually required me to pay. For those are a fan of Spotify: you pay $10/month for access to millions(?) of songs, but what happens when Spotify goes under, or gets bought? You've been paying for, let's say, 3 years - $360 - and what do you have to show for it? I much prefer sinking that amount of money into backing up my music collection.
- inclemnet 12y ago
  > You've been paying for, let's say, 3 years - $360 - and what do you have to show for it? The answer is 3 years of music enjoyment. Honestly, this seems like a terrible example - I don't think anybody pays for spotify on the basis that they will have the music forever, it's very explicitly a rental service. Instead, people pay because it's the most convenient (including being cheap) way to access the music they want. > While I'm not a CD junkie, I find myself clinging to the model you mention, because I am not eager to hand over control to a company that continually required me to pay This doesn't really make sense either. If you don't like rental services, don't pay for them, buy the albums just like you always did - it's easy to buy DRM free mp3s nowadays.
  - dublinben 12y ago
    At $120/year, Spotify is much more expensive than most people's annual music budget.[0] It might be convenient, but it certainly isn't cheap. At least with individual album purchases, you are building 'equity' in a music collection $10 at a time. [0] https://recode.net/2014/03/18/the-price-of-music/ https://recode.net/2014/03/18/the-price-of-music/
    - inclemnet 12y ago
      Then those people probably don't want to pay for spotify. I didn't mean to imply that spotify is automatically a good deal for everyone, obviously it isn't, but I think it's plausibly a good deal for a lot of people. > but it certainly isn't cheap I'll admit, I was speaking more from the perspective of listening to a lot of music. For instance, the combined purchase value of all the albums in my spotify playlists far exceeds the total amount I ever spent on spotify, though I haven't used it for a while. I'm sure there are many people for whom this is true, even if they aren't a large proportion of the whole population. In general you're right of course, 'cheap' is a matter of perspective. Spotify is not cheap for everyone, but it is potentially cheap for plenty of people. I still don't see the problem with this.

Daiz 12y ago

>It's not japanese who are crazy, it's more like western people are totally irrational and insane! The main thing that's crazy is really the digital distribution systems available to us. If all we have is some DRM-crippled products, then you can't actually buy things digitally - merely rent them for an undefined period of time. Luckily, there are at least some things you can buy without DRM (music does pretty decently in this regard, games somewhat), but on the whole the situation is rather gloomy (especially with anything video). And while I do like the catalog rental model that services like Netflix offer with their subscriptions, at the very least I would like to be able to digitally buy the things I really like, which is flat-out impossible in many cases.

k-mcgrady 12y ago

>> "heck, it's not even buying, it's more like renting by some weird license!)" Nearly all the music I've bought online in the last 5 years has been DRM free which means I can play it on any device and nobody can delete it. I bought it, I own it. It's not rented.As for sharing with you friends that doesn't happen very often but mainly I think because it's easier for them to just get their own copy than meet me to borrow mine. When it was more common to borrow media from people that was not only because it was free but because they would have to travel to a shop, and if that shop didn't have it, travel to another and another until they found it. Now they can own it in seconds.

kreek 12y ago

My rational to it is that I have enough clutter, in my house and on my hard drive, that I don't need to add to it with stacks of CDs or GBs of hard drive space. You and the Japanese should meditate on the nature of impermanence, everything in the physical world is rented so your music should be too ;)

ics 12y ago

Prices are generally higher than in North America. Most of the CDs that I would buy in the US for around $15-20 is anywhere from ¥2450-5400. Additionally, most of the "extras" are just advertising fluff. Books are priced similarly to the US, but the majority of them are Japan's version of trade paperbacks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunkobon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunkobon) – thin paper cover, cheap thin pages, small format, and wrapped at the register with an additional protective cover (usually with the store logo). Nicer hardcover books seem to be priced about the same as in the US. The biggest thing going for the whole industry (despite everything feeling so cheap) is that there is a book for everything. Manuals for open source software, a biography for some barely known musician, etc.– and you can actually find them browsing a regular Sanseido, Yurindo, or Kinokuniya.

jccalhoun 12y ago

I've come to hate physical media and I rarely buy it. Music is drm-free now and when I buy ebooks I only buy ones where I can crack the drm so I don't have to worry about licenses being revoked or drm servers going offline. I've also moved a lot so carrying a couple hard drives is much easier than boxes and boxes of books and cds - let alone people that collect vinyl.

rsl7 12y ago
Often buying a used CD on amazon is cheaper than buying the album on itunes or amazon download. Sad but true. I admit I also enjoy the packaging for music I care about.

Istof 12y ago

The digital copies definitely should be cheaper when you consider the cost of producing and shipping CDs... which is why I download them from Youtube since apparently artists get paid this way (thank you youtube-dl)

chaostheory 12y ago

> and doing so for nearly the same money as if you buy real book or CD! A lot of e-books are either half off or more than their physical counterparts. Also when you're buying technical books, their electronic versions will get updated and you buy and get access to e-books in draft form which is pretty useful for bleeding edge tech. It's also pretty cool to be able to fit your entire library in your pocket. Everything said, I still would never buy the digital version of art books and coffee table books and I still own the physical copies of the books I really like. I tend to buy digital copies more as an accessory.

pix64 12y ago

Buying a CD is still buying a license. You don't own the data in either case.