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On the social web, knowledge is smothered by agenda and on the publisher web by ads and paywalls and contracts. Ever tried to look up some news from 12 years ago? Back in library days you were able to do that. On news portals, most articles are deleted after a year, and on newspaper web sites you hardly ever get access to the archives โ even with a subscription.
(Aside: Just checked my local newspaper, hoping for a counter-example, and it's true there too. Even with my monthly, inflated subscription payments, I don't have access to the archives. Though I bet my local library does, as it did (natch) during the "library days".)
This -- what ultimately boils down to the loss (or "unremediation") of [paper] ownership -- is, perhaps, why we need a more thorough Archive.org.
Iโm not quite sure whether iTunes LP was a bad idea or simply one that neither Apple (aside from Steve Jobs?) nor the music producers actually had much interest in.ย
I think this signals less "whether iTunes LP was a bad idea" (though the skeuomorphism Jobs loved is slowly dying our from the `OSes) than "someone's paying attention to scaling down iTunes". I think they're slowly moving towards killing music sales, no matter what Sellers at AWT thinks. ;^D
I tried to think of why this is happening now, and believe it falls in with a general deprecation of non-Apple Music (qua the streaming service) features in iTunes. Here are a few data points...
Cesium's author points out that playing music on your own phone is increasingly difficult via Apple Music in iOS 11.
That is, where Apple Music API used to be an easy way to access files and streams, it's now neither. A change is coming.
HomePod is an obvious push towards subscriptions.
The only music you can play that doesn't require at least an Apple Match subscription is stuff you bought directly from Apple.
In a sense, those files are delivered via streaming too... the only twist is that you sometimes save the bytes.
This useless Android Apple Music app, which can't even play what you've purchased from Apple. It's only streaming.
The writing's on the wall. Heck, Apple Music on iTunes has a whole second UI...
After cashing in a $100 for $85 Apple Music gift card (<<< I'm not an affiliate, but it looks like it was legit), iTunes asked me if I'd like to put that towards an Apple Music subscription.
No, no I wouldn't. But I did drop into the Apple Music UI side of iTunes, which is obviously different than the normal iTunes Music Store. I bet there's some crossover with the Android app. After looking around the posh store of which I wasn't a member, I slunk out, knowing there's a new side to iTunes I don't get to experience.
The number will continue going lower. And subtract from that number the cost to support the mammoth mess that is iTunes and the iTunes Music Store. Microsoft's Groove is a small-scale test of the economics of supporting music sales. There are better places to spend that development time.
The Apple Music side of iTunes will eat the iTunes Music Store. We're getting rid of the cruft of the Store now. In a year or two, the iTMS will be a clear second fiddle to Music. Then we'll get a warning, like I did on Groove, to download all my purchases by a certain date, or they'll be unavailable.
And finally, acceptance
After years of hang-wringing, I find that by now I don't really mind that online track sales is dying. I have a good collection.
And I'm lucky enough to have a local record store. Here's what they wrote to all of their newsletter subscribers when Best Buy said it was closing down CD sales...
The whole point of all of this isn't to slam Best Buy...ย But what invariably happens when the media reports an item like this is that the general public totally misconstrues what's going on.
ย
What's going on, as it affects you, is... well, not much.
ย
Except for this - not only are we going to continue to sell CDs, we're actually adding to our CD inventory.
I don't see vinyl getting less hipster. And, as they say later in their letter, "Three, there will be a CD resurgence one day, you know there will. It might not be as drastic and fantastic as the vinyl resurgence, but I'll bet it'll be stronger than the cassette revival." That's probably a good call too.
After the iTunes Music Store closes its doors, I'll still have music to buy. And rip. And mix. And burn.
TextExpander has gone to a subscription model, and, as almost always, Michael Tsai gives you the best rundown of what's been going on. Here are two of the quotes he shares:
TJ Luoma (via John Gruber, comments):
But is this just another case of โUsers are cheap and donโt value developersโ time?โ I donโt think so. [โฆ] Thereโs the rub for Smile and TextExpander: I donโt see anything that I really need in TextExpander version 6. Iโm not using it with a โteamโ and my family members probably have no interest in sharing a group of text snippets with me. Yes, I realize that Smile made their own syncing service, but I have used iCloud, Dropbox, and BitTorrent Sync, and they work fine for TextExpander. Creating their own syncing service was solving a problem that I didnโt have.
Joe Cieplinski:
And thatโs what makes TextExpander an interesting case. Is it โproโ software? Or is it more like a consumer product? I tend to think of it as somewhere in between.
[โฆ]
Because I actually use TextExpander, I find myself in a position of having to evaluate this decision to go subscription-only from two different perspectives: that of a fellow developer, and that of an actual customer of the product.
But if you're having a hard time following, I can sum it up even more quickly:
Smile is charging the consumer market too much for their subscription to TextExpander.
Charge consumers $2 a month, $20 for a year for recurring subscriptions, and you'll see folks signing up and paying with as much laissez-faire as they do their overpriced phone bills. Problems solved.
These micro-subscriptions are just smart. Now you've got a workaround for trials, as someone can now experience all of your service for $2. And you've got a workaround for updates, since you're charging everyone for the upgrade every month.
A while into their discussion, after all the description of what TextExpander does, is this:
What is happening with the world of subscriptions today?
...
Whenever it seems like you're moving away from a model that's easy to understand and what you're used to, and when it involves asking for more money, that's naturally going to cause friction... Smile must have their reasons for doing this.
...
These features are not things that will benefit me much. [emph mine]
So there's my point... if it costs more to cover features folks don't use, well, people will leave. I think most people quickly realize this subscription isn't just more cash than they were paying before, but a lot more cash. As Tsai points out:
TextExpander 4 was $35 in 2012, and there was a $20 update for TextExpander 5 in May of 2015, about three years later. Now, after less than a year, the price for a yearly subscription is $47.52. (There is a one-time, one-year 50% discount for previous customers.) So the price for three years has gone from $20 to $142.56.
[Higher Pitched Voice Dude:] Like right now, I'm paying for Hulu, HBO... as far as subscription stuff... Netflix, Hulu, HBO; I pay for those over-the-top. I have Amazon Prime, which means I get Amazon Prime stuff... And then on top of it, now, I've got this PlayStation Vue service...
...
[Lower Pitched Voice Dude:] There are all of these services that we pay for that we use a little bit that we don't use a lot. [He then talks about not owning what you "subscribe" to, and how it goes away when you stop.]
So for HPVD, that's $8-$12 for Hulu, $15 for HBO, $8-$12 for Netflix, so $31-$39 a month. Sheesh, Higher Pitched Voice Dude. That's a lot. LPVD is right on the money -- That's a lot to pay for something you use "a bit". Do we really think we couldn't lose $1-2 a month for TextExpander in that bucket of monthly payments somewhere?
Quick point: Katie Floyd does not frame this correctly:
Katie Floyd:
Thereโs also another important benefit to the new model, Smile has a steady revenue stream with which to continue development of their products. If you take a look at the companyโs โAbout Usโ page, youโll see more than a dozen smiling faces of real people who work at Smile and depend on the revenue their apps and services generate. [emph mine]
ARGH. Comma splice. Hate it. ;^) /rant
Actual point: Business is not welfare. You have to earn the money. They're asking for too much money.
If they were 12 bums and they refused handouts of less than $5? Might work. But it's chancy.
Prediction: Smile drops the price for consumer use.
Edit 12 April: As an old, fat, bald, orange man would say, I believe I had that.
It's not too bad, but it's more than I would've guessed. That said, I'm being pretty fair here. I'm pretending the only reason I have Amazon Prime is for the shows, but that's not exactly true [at all].
And I buy my iTunes "dollars" at a discount by getting gift cards on sale. And I'm including some stuff I didn't subscribe to the last year, but think are likely enough to add. Though, admittedly, I could fall onto the Netflix and/or Sling wagons for an extra month during the year.
I think the most important thing, and what I rarely hear others say they're doing, is that I only subscribe when there's something we know we want to watch. So the monthly prices are all over the place.
Below the reasons for each service is a "calendar" of when I'm subscribed.
Service
Reason
Netflix
Daredevil, House of Cards, Kimmy Schmidt
iTunes Store
The Americans, Better Call Saul
Sling
Monday Night Football (team specific), NCAA
tournament (team specific), NBA Playoffs
HBO
Game of Thrones
Showtime
Homeland, Ray Donovan, The Affair
Amazon Prime
Shipping, but also Prime Video and Prime
Music Streaming
So about $27 a month. Sheesh. I mean, much cheaper than Dish's $50 a month, which wouldn't carry many of these shows at that tier, but still significant. Danged sports, robbing me blind.
Oh, come on. You love html tables with borders, circa 1996.
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