The rollout of the Apple iTunes Music Store three-tiered pricing system last Tuesday has already drawn criticism, copycats and apparent declines in sales rankings among some of the top 100 songs.
In January, Apple had announced it would soon begin selling all DRM-free songs with the introduction of the new pricing levels of $.69, $.99, and $1.29. Still, the change has not been warmly received.
Engineering junior Jedtsada Laucharoen said he believes the change won't be embraced positively.
"Most people are buying the most popular songs, which are now the most expensive, and this isn't good for them," he said.
The $1.29 price is mostly for the newest and most popular singles, like Lady Gaga's Poker Face and the Black Eyed Peas new song, Boom Boom Pow. Most other songs will remain at $.99, while older songs will be $.69.
Across the blogosphere, opinion seems to steer toward the negative side.
Popular technology blog Ars Technica indicated it was quite difficult for them to find the cheapest, $.69 tracks while Gizmodo's headline read, "iTunes Tiered Pricing Goes Live, We Get Gently Screwed."
The price changes could erode the market share of Apple, according to PCWorld, as both AmazonMP3 and Wal-Mart are cheaper in some cases, despite their own introductions of tiered pricing levels as well.
For example, AmazonMP3 routinely offers promotional albums and "New Music Tuesday" deals that are well below the prices offered by the iTunes store. Several $7.99 new album releases are priced at $9.99 in the iTunes store.
Many savvy shoppers have begun to employ the use of Web sites and programs like Advantageous MP3 in order to compare prices across the services and find the best deal.
While it is unlikely that Apple will see significant decreases in purchases because of its new pricing system, Billboard pointed out that several of the pop hits on the iTunes store "Top Songs" chart have seen declines in their sales rankings.
The $1.29 songs have lost an average of 5.3 places on the chart, while the $.99 songs have climbed 2.5 places overall.
However, they did point out that in order for there to be a decrease in overall revenues, unit sales would have to drop by at least 23.3 percent, which does not seem to be a pressing concern for worry.
"I doubt that the change will have much of an effect on how much I purchase, but I might switch to Amazon more often," College junior Mukul Sharma said.
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