This is the company that doesn't pay taxes.
I don't know why everybody keeps pontificating that Apple is a beloved enterprise whose customers will follow it like lemmings no matter where it goes. That's a dying paradigm which is undermined every time the Cupertino company does something consumer unfriendly.
This is not DuPont, not some mining company no consumer actually touches. Rather, Apple made its bones by selling to the rank and file, not corporations. And even though Tim Cook has tied up with IBM, even though there's been a push into the corporate sphere, the lion's share of the dough comes from you and me. And we're starting not to like these people.
Cook is bland, Jony Ive has disappeared, and Eddy Cue was lambasted in the "Wall Street Journal" for overreaching. ( Apple's Hard-Charging Tactics Hurt TV Expansion: http://on.wsj.com/2agkAFs)?utm_source=phplist5550&utm_medium=email&utm_content=text&utm_campaign=More+Exclusives As for Apple Music, it's faceless. Musicians criticize Daniel Ek, but they don't know who to complain about at Apple Music. Until Apple-bleeder Sean Glass said that Larry Jackson was the man, no one knew who was working with acts at Apple. (http://bit.ly/2bKESLb)?utm_source=phplist5550&utm_medium=email&utm_content=text&utm_campaign=More+Exclusives As for Jimmy Iovine, he seems to be in the witness protection program.
Kind of like streaming itself.
There's a fiction that these exclusives will drive subscriptions.
I'm not so sure. You see the average person just doesn't need one. At least that's what they believe. Sure, YouTube is free, but the Tidal people kept bitching the competition didn't pay enough and they were getting poor when they were all rich, the wannabes and already made-its say Spotify doesn't pay enough and Apple Music...worked even worse than MobileMe and is about as desirable as the Watch. As for their vaunted Beats 1 radio service, when in hell did anybody have a "successful" product and not tell anybody about it, that's not Entertainment 101. The reason we haven't heard any ratings numbers is because they suck, you know that. And now the Apple Music Festival in London is going behind the paywall. (http://bit.ly/2bq8vAc)?utm_source=phplist5550&utm_medium=email&utm_content=text&utm_campaign=More+Exclusives This is like charging people for single episodes of "Vinyl" and "Roadies," they just don't care. You've got to make people want the product first before you can charge them. What next, an entry fee at the Apple Store?
Spotify says the free tier causes conversion, you've got to taste it to embrace it, like dope. I was against the service being free on the mobile handset, but data said it caused conversion, so I was convinced. As for the future, tweaks are reasonable, but I wouldn't go against the data, no growing company does. But we live in an industry where it's show me the money 24/7 and we do our best to destroy our nest egg. Recording revenues are off by 66% since the turn of the century... Are we gonna blame that all on pirates? No, I think the industry is complicit. First by selling overpriced CDs with only one good track. If I was running the world I'd be more fan-friendly. But no, the music industry would rather have the public as an enemy, in an adversarial position, is this any way to run a business? OF COURSE NOT!
As for Lucian Grainge banning exclusives... I'm worried we've got a "Hit Men" situation, wherein CBS drops indie promo and everybody else doubles down, loves the lack of competition. Time will see but in a world where cash is everything it's not hard to believe these acts are dashing for it.
Do you know who Travis Scott is?
I don't. And I'm proud of it. And the only people who do are young without credit cards, and they're gonna tell their parents to cough up ten bucks a month for Apple Music? Come on, they're just gonna steal it, find it elsewhere like with Frank Ocean. (http://bit.ly/2bKG9C9?utm_source=phplist5550&utm_medium=email&utm_content=text&utm_campaign=More+Exclusives, http://bit.ly/2bQKPoL)?utm_source=phplist5550&utm_medium=email&utm_content=text&utm_campaign=More+Exclusives You've got to convince the people with the wallets first, the parents.
I'm interested to see iPhone 7 adoption. Because handsets are no longer subsidized in the U.S. And it is not a revolution, that's the iPhone 8, next year.
What has Apple done for us lately? Just ask Walt Mossberg, who drank the kool-aid, who was a friend of Jobs, he questions a company that hasn't upgraded its laptops in four years. (http://on.recode.net/2clLzoE)?utm_source=phplist5550&utm_medium=email&utm_content=text&utm_campaign=More+Exclusives This is the gang that can't shoot straight. As for Samsung Galaxy Note 7's burning up... Who cares? Samsung is the alternative, the yin to the yang. People are gonna jump from Android to Apple like they do from Trump to Clinton, as in NEVER!
What kind of enticement is this? Music that used to be free on YouTube, that I can still buy on iTunes, I've got to pay ten bucks a month to hear it and then have it disappear?
We're putting the cart before the horse. Closing the barn door before most people see a need to pass through it. Exclusives would work better when everybody paid for a music subscription and they might jump ship. Now it's just a circle jerk amongst players who want to get paid and a corporation rolling in dough with no future roadmap.
But ain't that America, where everybody has their head in the sand until disaster arrives. Kind of like BlackBerry. The company thought it was indomitable and so did the financial press, and then it crashed. It used less data! It was more secure! There was a keyboard! Who cares!
Who cares about these exclusives other than those involved with them?
Almost nobody.
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