Music Business Models
Just returning from watching a really amazing Nutcracker by International Youth Ballet, and now watching an astonishingly bad hacker flick with Hugh Jackman and John Travolta on Cable; and some thoughts about music vs. TV come to mind.
This interview with Steve Jobs [via Scripting] is enlightening. Steve talks about the failure of subscription-based music services, something I’ve been surprised about. Like Aaron, I have assumed that some sort of subscription with usage-based distribution was inevitable. Not sure if I totally understand Steve’s argument against subscription yet, though. Just as interesting are his comments about the overhead in the current distribution system. And finally, he ends with an intriguing rant against television. Intriguing because he correctly asserts that TV is mostly useless bubblegum for the mind, but then goes on to say that the current generation is deprived because we listen to music less hours per week than his generation did. As if music is significantly less passive than television? Or was he just pandering to Rolling Stone? Music is more conducive to reflection, I suppose, but I wonder..