Bundles of Stupid

Making a Bundle Out of iTunes:

Well, she's got the capitalization down. Now only if she could make some sense.

I suspected that this was some sort of an elaborate troll, but no, this chap at PC inciter actually wants to break up Apple's monopoly over the iTunes store, the iPhone, and the iPod.

What monopoly, you may ask, and indeed, I did. Apple has a monopoly over these things only in the trivial sense that P&G has a monopoly over Charmin, and I have a monopoly over the chocolate cake I baked last night.

Megan is right, although the concept of her harping on someone else for misusing a word is pretty much the best Allaanniiss Mmoorriisseettee song, ever.

Well, I'd like to get takeout from Ray's Pizza and enjoy it in the stunning ambience of Cafe des Artistes. If the waiter refuses to let me do so, is that a monopoly?

No, that's what we call "bundling". Most people hate bundling. That's because most people are under the impression that they would pay less if things were unbundled. Sometimes this is true. But if you forced Cafe des Artistes to "unbundle" the location from the food, that doesn't mean I'd be able to enjoy a cut rate meal in a beautiful location. They'd just charge me $100 for the seat.

Well, yes, because they don't currently charge you for the seat, only the food. The seat is implied with the purchase. Totally like iTunes, which gives its phones and mp3 players away for free and then charges you only for the music. What an awesome analogy. It only fails almost entirely.

Similarly, people who want their cable unbundled because they only want to pay for a few channels are under the delusion that they could save huge bucks by cutting off the Golf Channel. But cable companies don't save any money when you drop the Golf Channel, because they stream all the channels down the coax at once.

Through a series of pipes and tubes..... O_o ???? ¿que?

I hate it when she gets technical.

Indeed, it may cost them money; the Golf Channel now has fewer potential viewers, and hence falling ad revenues, and they have to hassle around with custom packages for every customer, which is labor intensive, and thus extremely expensive (and also more likely to break).

Potential viewers, the dream of every advertising man. I love that she calls cajoling people into buying shit they don't need "labor."

Like cable, iTunes is mostly fixed cost, which means that unbundling would make their profit fall much faster than their revenue.

This is such utter horseshit and completely contrary to Apple's entire business model, which is to make things user stupid friendly and force brand loyalty down people's throats. Then, when they're scared to even look at a PC, the consumers are fed iLife. Give all your money to Apple. We'll be you for you!

Megan is too stupid to know about the plethora of other mp3 players, online music libraries and internet phones that are much cheaper and don't force you to buy your fucking groceries through the iMart. iPhone will make plenty of fucking money on its own, and iTunes will still be profitable if you can play that song about rain on your wedding day that bought from it on a fucking "Chocolate" (or whatever's the rage these days). See, selling things makes money even if people don't buy other things. iTunes is mostly in business because people like the iPod and it was the first one on the scene with a presence. That doesn't make getting rid of iTunes a catastrophe for Apple and it sure as fuck doesn't make Apple products the fucking pinnacle of consumer satisfaction anymore than Morton's salt really is the fucking salt of earth. It doesn't "just work." It's just fucking there and people don't think that they really have a choice.