MUSIC: iTunes Pricing Stays the Same

Disappointing news from Apple: The company's iTunes online store will keep its current pricing system of 99 cents per track. There are a number of reasons this means I still won't be using it.

For one, a buck a track is simply too expensive, even if you give a discount for downloading the whole CD. Much of the time, you can order a real CD and have it sent to you for about what you'd pay on iTunes. I suppose it works for people who only want that one song they heard on the radio, but it just doesn't pay for album-loving folks like me.

Two, of course, they're selling bloody mp3s! It's not even CD quality (mp3s work, in part, by cutting out the frequencies that are above what a human ear can detect - listening to a WAV and an mp3 side-by-side, one can't help but notice that the compressed file is quieter and less well defined. You can't complain if you're downloading illegally, which I discourage on moral grounds, but no one wants to pay for it).

There are a million other reasons a variable pricing strategy (favored by record labels) would work better. For example, different songs are different lengths. Charging the same price for a 2:30 Green Day song and a 9-minute Tool epic is ridiculous, as is charging 99 cents for a lame rap skit or a rock album's 30-second intro.

Also, hit singles could catch higher prices (album tracks are pretty risky for most bands, and very important when paying by the song), and up-and-coming bands could lower their prices to get a foothold in the industry.

Steve Jobs may like the 99 cent strategy for its simplicity, but it's a loser in just about every other way imaginable.