I just posted a question on Yahoo! Answers and LinkedIn Answers: What influences or would influence you to purchase music? It's only ten minutes in and obviously a very limited sample size, but the responses so far seem to indicate that many respondents only purchase music if they can't find a free download of it. Will that trend continue through the next few days of responses? If so, what can bands do to get to their listeners pocketbooks? And does that profit have to come through album sales (and if not, what alternatives can exist)?
Voice your opinion here, or comment on this blog.
1 comment:
Obviously there are alternative revenue streams such as merchandise, ticket sales, etc. But in my opinion the music itself is the value that has been created, not the image associated with the band. Therefore I prefer to pay for the music (i.e. per song or album) rather than for something else that I am not deriving pleasure from or particularly interested in. What would be interesting are alternative music pricing schemes based on, for example, the Megabus concept. The first 1,000 users to download a song get it for 5 cents. The next 5,000 users get it for a dime. The next 10,000 get it for a quarter, etc. As a band gets more popular, more people will want to hear what they're missing, and they'll be more willing to pay an increased price for it. There's no need to cap it off at 99 cents either, since many people will be willing to pay more for that. Simple supply and demand at work, and it drives people to discover new bands that may eventually be more popular (worth more). What do you think?
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