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Comment by cageface | Hacker News Reader

I hope programmers are so sanguine when their work is "correctly" priced into oblivion. I do think that subscription services are the wave of the future but I don't see how you can argue that Spotify helps artists.

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> I hope programmers are so sanguine when their work is "correctly" priced into oblivion.

On the whole, I think they are. I haven't heard anyone here (or anywhere else) complain that hardly anyone bought their iPhone app that they put a lot of effort into.

I hear programmers constantly lamenting outsourcing, undercutting by cheap contractors on Elance, cheap & shoddy work done by consulting companies etc. Your iPhone analogy is poor because what Spotify is doing is displacing an existing, profitable product with an unprofitable (for the artist) product. Maybe it's inevitable but it's churlish to so smugly call it "correct".

I remain skeptical that programmers will be so happy to see their livelihood "disrupted" when and if it happens to the extent it's happened to artists.

Not-much-$ is still better than none-$-at-all. It's not exactly the choice of Spotify vs. buy a CD in shop, it's a choice between Spotify and BitTorrent.

That does not make it the correct price. The correct price pays back the production cost (including paying for the time and creativity of the artist in making up the song) and adds some profit. Get that from volume or high price but low price is not correct price.

The correct price is what consumers are willing to pay for not what you think your profit margin should be.

Unless you want to see the product disappear from the market, the "correct" price must also compensate the production costs and provide for a little profit for the author. Thanks to digital piracy the price many customers are willing to pay falls far short of that mark. If stealing physical goods was as easy as stealing digital goods you'd see the "correct" price of a car far fall below what it costs to make it too.

Except I have a plethora of buying cars and plenty of dealers willing to take my money. In the digital space a considerable amount of piracy is due to no legally available outlet for purchase of digital goods in a manner commiserate with what users want. Look at the success of iTunes and spotify as filling consumer needs. Besides if the price consumers are willing to pay for your product does not cover its production costs then you have no market (i.e. product)

You appear to be using your own definition.

Correct pricing, in an economic sense, is that which an undistorted market will bear, using whatever definition of "undistorted" you like. It's that simple.

> using whatever definition of "undistorted" you like

My definition includes the absence of violence, threats of violence, or dishonesty.

If the only reason people aren't using BitTorrent downloads is threats of violence (which is what threats of internet disconnection are, albeit at several levels removed), then it isn't a free/undistorted market.

> The correct price pays back the production cost (including paying for the time and creativity of the artist in making up the song) and adds some profit.

So if I wrote a program, say an iPhone app, using lots of time and creativity, but no-one wanted to buy it, do you think I should get paid for it anyway? If so, where would the money come from?

It is a choice between buy a CD in a shop, itunes, or Spotify. Especially if you pay for spotify, why pay again for the same music?

It's all about volume. Some money made on Spotify, some by selling CDs, some by concerts, some by merchandise. And there is ofcourse exposure.

Two words: Don McLean.

All moneys made off of one song. From 1971. Sonnofabitxch.

And we want to prevent that. Just because it benefits ONE guy or one small group, does not mean its a good idea. It just means that one guy will suffer and have to actually work for a living while the rest of us have a chance.

In my experience, the software industry is a bit more open to the idea that business models will need to adapt to the realities of the internet age. And yes, many of us are quite sanguine about it.

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