$1.29 a song
As many people around the net have reported today, Apple has started selling songs using its variable pricing scheme. And unfortunately, it looks like Amazon may be following suit.
Now, I like DRM free music as much as the next guy. But for popular songs, I’m not jazzed about paying $0.30 more per track. For some reason, I’d rather be locked into the DRM than have to pay more. Apple was probably going to get less of my money when this scheme first came out as I was going to buy more songs from Amazon if they were staying at $0.99 / track. But I guess they too have seen the higher prices from the record industry and more cash in their pockets. I have a feeling that the record companies are the scape goat here and Amazon and Apple know that they can make more dough by doing this.
Now my question is…where are the $0.69 cent songs? I know that I have looked up some old albums with some tracks that should be a lot cheaper. Unfortunately, I have yet to see the prices drop.
Overall, I think that this is going to hurt the consumer more than help us. But unfortunately, our options are limited for legitimate music going onto our iPods.