17th
Pandora and the Sinking Ship
I was gearing up to write a “Your Website Sucks” post when I ran across this little tidbit about the wonderful Pandora music service.
Technical shortcomings aside, the Pandora service itself is fantastic. Not because it offers users a bunch of “free” music, but because it introduces listeners to music they otherwise would never have heard. In my short stints with the service, I have added almost two dozen bands to my “you must check these guys out” list. This is the value that the service offers to music labels, but these greedy fuck-wads just don’t get it.
The big labels still believe they can cling to their faulty business model as the whole ship rapidly sinks. They know they need a bucket brigade but instead of moving water from the hull to the sea, they are helping the water in. In this case, instead of exploring new ways to capitalize in emerging technologies, they simply want to exploit them as they have in every other market. What they are likely to do is watch as these new companies shutter their doors rather than face the prospect of trying to stay above water as the labels bleed more and more of their revenues.
It is insane to think of internet stations being forced to pay 2.91 cents per hour per listener against terrestrial radio’s zero. But then again, that industry is also pumping water into their own bilges, sinking faster than the labels. The RIAA does not see that it will need the internet more than ever by the time this pricing comes into effect. Why would people listen to radio, with its one hour playlist repeated ad nauseam when their iPods delivers only songs they want to hear. Those people still want to discover new music, but if the labels insist on killing great ideas (knowingly or not) and fighting companies that make great user-experiences, someone will step in to do it for them. And that will be the night when the lights went out of sight.
(Via azrael)
