The reason musicians think music is too cheap is simple enough: they aren’t making enough money off it. Fair enough, but the reason musicians aren’t making enough money off music is not because it is too cheap, but because it is too expensive.
I must admit to be being baffled as to why the cost of MP3s are not a fraction of $1.29. They should be 60 cents since half the money was spent on distribution and manufacturing, 20 cents for inflation, and you are at 80 cents… an album should be $7.50… why did the prices never go down? remeber this joke? “That single, comforting price of 99 cents for all songs in the iTunes music store is being replaced today by three pricing tiers: 69 cents for the oldies-but-not-so-goodies, $1.29 for some hot new hits, and 99 cents for nearly everything else.”
That’s right, those 69 cent songs were fun, weren’t they?
The battle over streaming is a battle over prices not distribution. I don’t care what anybody says, the average person does not want to spend $10 a month on a streaming service, it is too expensive, but if songs and albums were cheap enough they would get back in the habit of buying them.
Instead, the immense greediness of the record labels, and of their employees the musicians, destroyed the paradignm and opened the door for streaming. Until there is a lowering of rates, making money off music will remain a serious problem and one that Spotify won’t change and Taylor Swift won’t help.
In the end, I am a huge music guy and I will pass on albums I can’t stream, I see very little and very rarely do spend $17 for some deluxe piece of crap by Bob seger.
