Stock Up at iTunes Before Tiered Pricing Hits on April 7th!

[Jeff Campbell]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/03/itunes-tracks-soon-to-bid-farewell-to-blanket-99-pricing.ars' target='_blank'>http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2...-99-pricing.ars</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"Apple is about to flip the switch on its tiered pricing model in the iTunes Store. Gone will be the blanket 99&cent; track in favor of 69&cent;, 99&cent;, and $1.29 varieties. Not everyone in the industry agrees that this is the best idea, however."</em></p><p><em><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/at/auto/1238282372.usr105634.jpg" style="border: 1px solid #d2d2bb;" /></em></p><p>And the switch is due to be flipped on April 7th, according to a bit of <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-cotown-itunes26-2009mar26,0,5579880.story" target="_blank">intel</a> the Los Angeles Times picked up from "industry executives" that said Apple notified them the date was set. I'm glad they are at least dropping the DRM in conjunction with the tiered pricing, as announced by Phil Schiller in January at Macworld. This was the tradeoff for switching the pricing scheme apparently. The pricing is based on the relative "hotness" of the track, but I wonder if Amazon MP3 store is following suit? I suppose if the tiered pricing is a success they just might. If not, I'd imagine there will be people doing price shopping as they would for anything other product, myself included. Especially since <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/dmusic/help/amd.html" target="_blank">Amazon MP3 Downloader</a> makes it so easy to get the music into your iTunes library.&nbsp;</p>

[doogald]

I'm willing to bet that I will not be interested in almost every track that will cost $1.29. Also, remember, Phil Schiller did say that there will be more tunes priced at $0.69 than $1.29.

[Jason Dunn]

I'm willing to bet that I will not be interested in almost every track that will cost $1.29. Also, remember, Phil Schiller did say that there will be more tunes priced at $0.69 than $1.29.

I don't buy tracks from iTunes, but in general I think the ideal of variable pricing will benefit most consumers - at least those that purchase something other than new songs. And let's not forget that some companies will do cool things like one-day sales on songs/albums as promotions. I've gotten some great stuff on Amazon.com for ultra-cheap because of that freedom in pricing flexibility.

[doogald]

Hey! I found a $0.69 song!

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?i=3441441&id=3441449&s=143441

(Did a search for The Kinks. There are actually four songs at that price, out of 355 . . .)