Why should I pay more than $0.00 for RadioHead?
The worst that can happen if RadioHead loses money this time is they would go the usual album pricing route from next time on. Why can't I get this one for $0.00?
Clarification added October 11, 2007:
Fresh from my coursework on pricing and game theory, I can argue that my decision is immaterial in the context of millions of others who will "play" this game. What is the Win-Win here, as one of the answers noted? Is that we all get to pay $10 for from now on for all their future albums? Even for the biggest fan, paying $10 or more now does not mean any future benefit. Pay 0, let RadioHead get all the marketing it can, let us not have them find our willingness to pay through our revealed preferences.
Good Answers (6)
Mitch K
at Krayton Seminars
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You are given the option to buy their music for what you think it is worth.
That is the bargain.
If you think it is worth more than nothing, than pay them what it is worth. If you don't you don't owe them anything. It sets no standard for future expectations whatsoever. If they keep making music you like well enough to pay for it, they are incented to create more and you are incented to consume it. If they don't you won't-at any price.
The win is called paradigm shift. The gatekeeper publishers who used to control how music was marketed, sold and distributed and being made irrelevant by new technologies. The music (media) business cannot accept this innevitable fact. They may fight to preserve their archaic ways, but they can't keep suing their customers and then expect them to buy these practices. They will run out of money and the public will run out of patience. It is already happening despite the recent decision on the one downloader (it is yet to be appealed).
This Band is exploring ways to make money when the music is set free. It will do so with concert sales, merchandise sales and fan club membership. They will offer bonus products to members who join for a fee. They are getting a lot of free publicity. Welcome to the free marketplace.
This will be the new model to sell digital media because you no longer need the physical disks to make the sale. Beware the gatekeepers.
It is significant to note that most people do in fact pay for this tune as offered and in one case as much as $1000. This is all voluntary. This is validating the paradigm shift.
Imagine how much a band earns today from one song that sells a million copies through traditional channels. How much net flows to the band? Not much.
Now how much will the band get from its own website if they only get 10 cents from 5 million downloads. That is significant. It is even more impressive if people pay $1 per tune.
So you can get the music for $0. There is no reason for you to complain. In the end, everyone will win.
Octavio B
Corporate Strategist ★ Business Leader ★ Management Consultant
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Rags:
Some reasons to pay more than $ 0,00 for Radiohead:
They are opening music downloading market to public in an innovative way where customers fix the price. If everybody pays nothing for downloading new music by Radiohead this interesting experiment would fail, compromising future availability of music from new distribution channels.
If you are a fan of Radiohead you will appreciate their music and you are willingness to pay the price of downloading. If you prefer you could wait for CD release in November.
Radiohead like other Pop and R&R artists are reveling against traditional recording business. If you are a believer of this new model business you should address this initiative.
My 2 cents …
Octavio
Joshua M
UX Consultant at The Next Step On My Career Path
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You can. If you derive value from having the album, you might ask yourself how you can make this a win-win situation, rather than a win-lose one. It is up to you to look into your heart and decide what it is really worth to you. If the answer really is zero, then delete the files.
Sean T
Managing Consultant in Financial Services
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A bit of context
I'm a big fan of Radiohead
I've paid for all their albums to date
but I downloaded this one for free - and I didn't even have to pay the £0.45 administration charge I was told would be due, not sure why
Radiohead are following a business model experiment used successfully elsewhere of providing the core product for free - (of course with a twist as they give the option of paying more if you wish). As they say "it's up to you". Easyjet have offered zero cost flights and made money on the peripherals. The Metro newspaper is offered free each morning to me on the tube, and is growing across multiple cities . The early entrants to this model have usually been successful - and I predict Radiohead, Prince, The Charlatans and others who are going down this road will be too!
I provided my email address and accepted terms and conditions stating 3rd parties other than Radiohead can contact me which mean I'll probably get a load of junk mail. Radiohead will have been paid for this list. We don't know if this mailing list will include notoiocation of whether we paid and if so how much. If it does the "honest " fans may well get more mail appealing to their innate decency than the freeloaders like me. Or else I will get a huge chunk of "free offers"
I said this was an experiment. Most experiments have a hypothesis which will either be proven or not. We don't know what it is in this case. We can only surmise.
So I say, don't agonise over whether to pay, just do the first thing that comes into your head. If it thats to download for free, then do it, if you feel you want to pay then do it. But don't let anyone tell you what to do.
The album is great BTW, no "the Bends" but that's the point really
Ter D
Co-founder of Lemonwilde
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Dear Rags,
I enjoy your question. I'm confused, though. You CAN get this one for $0.00.
I also quite understand your clarification. I don't know if we should look at through the eyes of a "business move." I don't believe what happened on the 10th is so much about pricing at all. Radiohead has done quite well for themselves. Furthermore, they've been sitting on this album for a while now (not entirely completed, of course), even touring behind it. Half of the tracks already exist in the marketplace (through bootlegs from concerts). Without a label's backing...my guess is the band just decided to put this one out there. It was probably a good idea that just came up over a few drinks and they released the album. I do not believe they're trying to re-write the industry (although they've brought a light to things) just like Star Wars and Star Trek were not trying to suggest inventions for the future (but with cell phones and such, it almost appears that the concepts in these movies ARE coming to life). It's just a "hey, let's just put it out" kind of thing. You have to take that into account with these guys.
If you want to get more into the concept, however, please check out this article...
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071012-universal-prepping-free-subscription-service.html
To close, if you don't want to pay anything for the album, that's perfectly okay. It's a good chance for non-fans to discover the band, so if you're not sure how you feel about this, I'm sure they'd just be glad you listened to the songs they wrote.
Sincerely,
Ter Dines
Links:
Emotions characterize the appreciation of art, not logic.
"Labels" like Radiohead and Berkeley's Magnatune recognize that in a digital age, consumers can always pay zero for a copy from someone else. Variable pricing of unrestricted music has little to do with price minimums (although it does reduce file sharing incentives) and everything to do with allowing fanatics (e.g. Radiohead fans) pay more than the suggested retail price (as well as enabling the artist to receive a significant percentage of sales).
It's the ultimate in price discrimination - capturing the entire area under the demand curve.
