the country/world is populated by mindless lemmings. Same goes for Apple’s being. 
Yes, but it’s a qualified yes. If you’re restricting the term “artist” to acts with some name recognition, and hit-makers, you’d be right, but a healthy majority of signed artists never saw a dime of compensation from their labels, mostly because they didn’t sell enough records to show a profit against all the label chargebacks, etc. An independent artist can realize a bigger royalty percentage in theory from iTunes sales but as we all know it’s very rare that such an artist gains any traction in the marketplace. That’s why there’s still an advantage to being with a label, mostly due to their financial and structural ability to promote, market and distribute which is problematic for an unsigned artist.
You mean the way Apple or Netscape took market share from Microsoft? 
But yes, Apple has a very simple but brilliant business model, the same one that Sony taught all of us the hard way: the wedding of tech and content, plus considerable brand cache
Am I out of date regarding the rain forest? I thought that has serious implications in terms of world climate, medicines, etc.
Vertical integration is just as sweet a market model and goal of industry today as it has always been. Great for the seller, bad for the buyer. I learned that in grammar school 40 years ago. Nothing has proved itself out over and over again more than that. In the early computer days companies like IBM locked you in to contracts that wouldn’t allow you to use after market replacement parts or software from other vendors. Oracle has tried several times including the brilliant thin client PC. The fact that Apple has achieved it all while taking advantage and promoting consumer hatred towards MS is remarkable, since they pretty much took all the things MS has ever done to a new degree of anti-consumer practices while getting praised for it the entire time. Simply mind blowing.
That is exactly what surprises me so much about Apple. Somehow everyone wants their stuff while they have the least consumer friendly marketing strategies possible.
No, you are correct. The problem is the solution is always to tell some other country that they can’t have industry or an economy. It’s great to stand up and shout how important it is to stop chopping down the rain forest. It’s an entire other thing to stand up with a plan that helps extremely poor countries with terrible infrastructure manage that against their populations needs.
Aloha guys,
Seems to me,
Health, wealth and well being costs $$$.
Pain, suffering and dying is free.
{‘-’}
And with the rain forest, and other global issues like it, you have this guy
Health, wealth and well being
Telling this guy
Pain, suffering and dying
That we would appreciate it if he wouldn’t mess up our well being and and please just press on with the pain and suffering.
Very true…
I still say Pete is off-base calling iTunes/Apple “a vampire”. The analogy doesn’t fit. It would have been better had he called them “the Blob” from the 1958 film staring Steve McQueen. You can buy the theme song on iTunes, “Beware of the Blob”, written by Burt Bacharach.
Totally agree. The sad irony of the internet is that, for all its open standards and systems at a technical level, it has allowed some companies to monopolise markets with closed systems at the business level. You don’t have to have 100% of a market to be called a monopoly. 70% comes pretty close in my opinion.
If a firm competes and succeeds in attaining a 70% market share, it does not make them a monopoly. Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.
Likewise if a firm competes and succeeds in attaining a 70% market share, it also doesn’t free them from being called a monopoly. Monopolies all compete and succeed in gaining disproportionate market share.
I’m not saying iTunes is a full-blown monopoly in every sense but when you get to that level of market share you have to start asking questions.
iTunes does not fit the definition of a monopoly. There are tens-of-thousands of products/services that enjoy very high market share without being monopolies.
iTunes is just a part of Apple, and Apple is NOT a monopoly
If you own an Apple product you might think differntly.I couldn’t even get my iPhone to work without installing itunes .
MC
I too dislike using iTunes (the app) and do so as seldom as possible.
I also dislike using iPhoto.
Theses apps want to take over your user experience and while
for consumers this may be an advantage, as a pro I find them restrictive
and cumbersome.
{‘-’}
Yeah, exactly. I have a 32 gb data stick I can only put pictures on without F***ing Itunes.
Apple’s market shares as of last year:
mobile phones: 27% domestic, 4.2% worldwide
home computers: 12.9%
digital music sales: 75%
iPad’s market share: 68%
overall US tech device market share: about 8%
That’s NOT a monopoly.
Also, iTunes is a free application; if it’s true
that one must install it to get their iPhone to work, it doesn’t cost
anything and you don’t have to use it