06-07-2005, 04:36 AM
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Mystic
Join Date: Nov 2006
Posts: 1,887
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Tongue in cheek rabble comments aside (there was a winkie there, no?) there *is* a viable audience for this service.
Now, the target audience is *not* your typical 12-25 top-40 fan-boy or -girl that thinks 128kbps MP3/AAC is quality sound. They are more likely to be adults, 30-45, buy albums instead of singles, listen to Diana Krall or the Sandpipers instead of Britney-washed-up-Spears or 50 Cent, Classical music or jazz instead of hip-hop or pop; have a 6-figure income, and drive an Acura or Lexus instead of a bicycle. :wink:
Their idea of quality audio gear is more likely Escient (http://www.escient.com/) than iPod.
They will think nothing of spending $250 a year in music, at which point they get the cover charge back and the $16 per cd price works out to a reasonable $12 and under $1 a track. (That's how cover charges work; they weed out the browsers, but give the true prospective buyers a fair deal.)
Their playback device is likely a boutique Media Center PC customized and installed professionally.
And there are about 1000 in each of the country's top 50 markets.
Just enough to ramp up the service while waiting for a broader market to open up.
Let's face it, high-quality, mass-market, portable digital music players with 100gb drives are about two years away, but they are coming. When they do, they will find at least one content distributor waiting for them. For now, however, the market for lossless music is a high-end niche and best served through a high-end approach advertised in business mags, not the WB or Fox.
The news here is that somebody with enough funding and contacts to secure access to the catalogs of the major labels at full non-degraded quality is building up the infrastructure for a lossless music d/l service, that somebody understands one-size does not fit all customers, and that there is room for a premium niche.
There's more than one way to compete, after all.
And, ultimately, there is still 98% of the market up for grabs.
Now me, I'm more a pizza-n-beer guy myself, but I just might be able to meet the reimbursement threshold *If* they offer the hard to find stuff I'm still looking for that even Amazon can't get me... 
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