Hacker News Reader

Comment by Baba_Chaghaloo | Hacker News Reader

They can sell Mp3s but not for 99 cents a song... especially when Angry Birds costs $1.99. An entire album should be 99 cents or less. 25 cents sounds good to me.

EDIT: my point is don't complain that people aren't buying your product if you're charging them a price that's waaay above market value

View on HN

I can only speak for myself, but I listen to music far more often and for longer after initial purchase than any game. Dollar for dollar, minute for minute, $10 on a vnv album provides nearly incalculable level of satisfaction greater than any 10 iPhone games combined.

25 cents, really? That's what a second rate pickle costs. A lifetime of enjoyment is only worth a bite of a pickle? I happen to think music is way undervalued, because people just aren't very good at evaluating the long term value of it.

25 cents might be a bit low but 99 cents is very reasonable when you're competing with free. It's not that I'm complaining about feeling ripped off when buying music(although I do) it's more about taking a look at what works, ie the low-price or in store app model, and emulating it.

>>>They can sell Mp3s but not for 99 cents a song... especially when Angry Birds costs $1.99.

Now wait a minute there. What about an eBook? What about a movie or TV episode?

If Angry Birds for $1.99 is the price standard for everything, you're setting up a trap that most everything is going to fall into.

I've tried Angry Birds on demo tablets in stores -- and countless YouTube videos demoing tablets -- and I don't see the appeal. Even free, I wouldn't want it. Most games simply don't appeal to me. I'd rather read or listen to music or watch video.

Angry Birds might be worth $1.99 to you, but to me it has negative value.

Angry Birds made over a hundred million in profits so far, I'm saying maybe the music business should examine it's pricing structure. Don't get me started on Ebooks or TV shows.

>>>Angry Birds made over a hundred million in profits so far

And added what to human productivity and betterment? Never use money as a measure for anything except money.

As far as ebooks go, in traditional book publishing usually the shop takes about half the price and the printing and distribution takes around another quarter, leaving a quarter of the sale price for the publisher and author to split between them, so there should be a significant price drop in ebooks when compared to the dead tree version.

You think the price is too high, that doesn't mean that it's above market value.

You could pirate Angry Birds too if you really wanted to but they found a price point that defeats that and made $100 million.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com