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Comment by vkb | Hacker News Reader

Everyone is chiming in on this point, so I don't think I wrote it clearly enough. I would be willing to pay $1.50 for a song if it were through a known party, like Amazon Payments or PayPal. I've bought lots of music through Amazon. I'm not going to risk $1.50 to an unknown website. Additionally, my expectations as a consumer have been set to pay 99 cents per track, so to me, in the current atmosphere, $1.50 seems like it's too much, even though to the artist it might not be. The other issue I didn't touch on is DRM. Do I get the MP3 to keep forever if I pay? Most times, no.

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> I'm not going to risk $1.50 to an unknown website.

$1.50 isn't much of a risk you know, even if you don't know the website. You'd probably even get the song!

Also, if a song is on Audio CD, it's probably on iTunes too.

> in the current atmosphere, $1.50 seems like it's too much

This makes no sense. If you're a true music lover, a great song will give you countless hours of enjoyment and appreciation. Do you seriously think $1.50 is too much for that?

Compare to paying $10 for a movie ticket. You get 2 hours of entertainment, the movie might suck, and you don't get much from watching it again. That's massively worse value than $1.50 for a great song you can listen to over and over again.

I would gladly pay $1000 for Prince's Purple Rain, if there was no other way to get it.

> This makes no sense. If you're a true music lover, a great song will give you countless hours of enjoyment and appreciation. Do you seriously think $1.50 is too much for that?

Just to add to this: since you've been streaming the song, you already know that you enjoy it! There is no risk to you, as a consumer, of purchasing something you'd dislike. This, to me, is the genius of streaming services. I know that my money, once I spend it, is going to artists I enjoy.

> $1.50 isn't much of a risk you know, even if you don't know the website. You'd probably even get the song!

The $1.50 itself isn't the risk, it's how you pay for it - by entering your card details you let them charge you whatever they want whenever they want

They just might accept PayPal though.

And of course everyone trusts that PayPal won't be hacked. /s

I don't think it's a problem with $1.50 in absolute terms. It's $1.50 compared to $0.99 from other vendors. Artists have set the expectation that songs are worth $0.99 by selling them for that amount elsewhere.

FWIW, I don't buy a lot of music - I use free Pandora and put up with the ads.

Music execs set that expectation, and artists just have to live with it. http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/branding/1559631/...

"During those meetings it was Warner executives, not Jobs as is commonly thought, who suggested tracks be sold for 99 cents. At the time, many labels wanted to price tracks at $3.49 each. But not Warner.

“When we told Steve, he looked at us like we just gave him a gift,” Vidich recalls. “We knew we needed to alter consumer behavior in a big way. Below $1 was an emotional threshold for people. It became an acceptable impulse purchase.”

> I don't think it's a problem with $1.50 in absolute terms. It's $1.50 compared to $0.99 from other vendors.

Yes, but if you only have the $1.50 option for buying a song you supposedly love, it simply makes no sense to refuse because other places sell other songs for $0.99, especially considering the massive value for a measly amount of money you get either way.

Even when people would be strictly better off accepting a deal, they refuse it if they feel it is unfair: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimatum_game

But it seems to be too much for her. To quote "$1.50 is a lot to pay for a song, even a song you love..."

So only willing to shop with the self same large monoliths you claim are destroying the internet.

> I'm not going to risk $1.50 to an unknown website.

While that's a fair decision keep in mind that Paypal started as an unknown website at some point.

I have used Paypal as a commerce before for my online game and I can't stress this enough... their policies are awful. I don't blame an independent artist for trying an alternative, even if it is an unknown one.

Do I get the MP3 to keep forever if I pay? Most times, no.

Is that really the case? Most vendors selling MP3 format music are DRM-free.

Good point. I routinely pay $2.49 per track over at Beatport for DRM free 320 kbps quality. Can I find the same music on iTunes or Amazon? Sometimes, but there's a premium that Beatport can demand through having exclusive / niche content, which seems lost in the context of this discusstion (more or less).

> I'm not going to risk $1.50 to an unknown website.

Is that really what you wanted to say?

Because before you wrote this, I was under the impression that you don't want to risk your credit card details (and therefore risk the overhead that fraud or a hack on that site would cause you). But the if the problem is a whole $1.50, then I simply don't understand what difference the counterparty in this transaction makes.

If you don't mind sharing (and if you still recall) what was the payment service they were using?

It was via credit card, but it was a smaller site I'd never heard of (I'm into music but not enough to know this place..maybe they're legit and I just didn't spend enough time doing research) and I was weighing the responsibility of thanking the artist the cost of buying a single track on a fairly "random" site and watching my credit card like a hawk for a month. It wasn't worth it to me in the end, ultimately. Typing this out, it seems a bit harsh, but I think a lot of consumers go through this same mental process. When I wrote an ebook, I put it both on Amazon and through a Shopify-type store where people could buy the DRM-free version. 99% of those people chose Amazon, and with good reason.

That is simply because most people have their credit card info saved in Amazon already. And people are lazy.

And yeah I would be reluctant to use my credit card on a shady looking website but I don't even think twice about using my card at shady looking businesses. For example, just last week, I bought tacos from a taco stand inside gas station.

Was site shady looking or just unknown? For me as long as site has valid certs & professional UI, I am usually fine with it. Also if you are using credit card, you are not liable for any fraudulent charges.

Digital compared to physical is no comparison at all. A physical shop incurs physical consequences - like people knowing where you are, where your address is, and being able to say "it was over there".

EDIT: And credit cards still require you to reasonably show the charges are fraudulent, which means hey, you get to report it. And now you're out a credit card, so you also need to change it on all the places you need to use it.

Anecdotally, I got my credit card frauded 3 times over the span of 4 months a couple years back. I started reviewing sites I'd purchased with online wondering where my details might have been leaking out. Lo and behold, a local store nearby had their POS systems hacked. It took a quorum of local people on reddit to identify that it was this store in particular. My point is physical locations are just as insecure as websites and in fact it's usually a lot less obvious than remembering that sketchy website you bought an MP3 from and never going back.

In all cases it was also my credit card company that called me to let me know I was the victim of fraud on my card. Is it really the case that people need to hawk their accounts? I haven't had that experience for years now.

> I'm not going to risk $1.50 to an unknown website.

This is why people need Bitcoin.

A couple years ago, I bought 1 week of Soylent with Bitcoin.

Last year, I bought another batch. No more Bitcoin, but at least they accepted Paypal.

Now I’m looking to buy another batch, but they are asking me to trust them with another copy of my debit card. No deal. Back to 100%FOOD.

I pay cash for everyday stuff. After the Monoprice hacks, and then the Target hacks, I’ve become extremely leery of giving my payment information away. I’m looking for a big payoff, like being able to pay at multiple vendors, and I’m looking for a well-defended infrastructure that will definitely let me know if it gets breached.

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