In my day, this was all Dot Coms

[WilHarris]

http://www.bit-tech.net/columns/2005..._my_day/1.html

[smashie]

£2.80 damn where do you drink, over £3 for most beers in my local now

[Krikkit]

I can see your point haz, and it's all going down the pan imho. The freedom of music CD's and media is fantastic at the moment.

Originally Posted by smashie

£2.80 damn where do you drink, over £3 for most beers in my local now

Bloody hell, you southerners drink expensive stuff... It's about £2.40 max round here, with it getting to ~£1.50 or so if you pick the right places.

[Piratetaco]

you'll never see an internet tax. the government will just do what they do now bugger the motorist.


£2.80 a pint. may i suggest you look here?

[dom_]

start smoking, good way to pay taxes, so others dont go up

[MrWillyWonka]

£2.80, about right tbh in the south! Great article and pretty creative. Internet/computer tax probably won't come about, I can't see the government coming about with this, not sure how they would enforce it, especially because the internet can be used anywhere on different devicies. And theres the point of what is classed as a computer? Almost every electrical good today!

[Hamish]

lol about £2.40 in most the pubs here, and thats in london

[Mattt]

how rare, there was a question im my A-level genral studies paper in which my awnser ranted along those lines. ie radio, tv, phone, killed by internet.

i think the origional question was something like "how has TV affected radio listeners" so i went off on a bit of a tangent but oh well

[Da Dego]

Ya know, we already tax internet service over here.

It's a brave new world out there...

[frodo]

LoL my sister works @ weatherspoons

the thing im fearing is the government are going to remove nearly all types of media, with a restriction on everything, which means in effect you can kiss all anti government rock goodbye, as they would have a chance to channel it all

i just think the government are trying to stop everything we can do. the stage where it becomes a pay per listen/view day is the day i move country (or even world)

[macroman]

Originally Posted by Krikkit

I can see your point haz, and it's all going down the pan imho. The freedom of music CD's and media is fantastic at the moment.

At least get the authors name right!

[Firehed]

ok enough about the alcohol people, that's not the point of the article

I agree and disagree. You're way too right about the lesser of two evils bit. But there's only so much bs Joe Consumer will take from the suits before some sort of resistance movement is started. It all comes back to the difficulty of organizing something like that, or else it would have happened already. Well piracy is that resistance, so to speak, as you get your music as cheap as your net connection, void of the DRM junk. THAT's just a matter of how long before every bit sent and recieved from your connection is monitored, and whether decentralized trackers come out before the MPAA sues every software maker that transfers data in any way, legal or not.

I think it's just a matter of starting by doing something nuts enough to get on the news, but still get the message across so more people could know about the going-towards-communism-like-control resistance effort. It's like againsttcpa - yeah some people know about it (and yes, bad example, they're not the most accurate site ever) but the more people that know about their effective loss of their property (face it, TC makes your computer someone else's), something will start against it.

We just need someone with way too much money, beacuse that's what it takes to get anything done in most places. I can't speak for UK, but I know it's true for the US.

/edit - and I've just emailed NBC about it

[3.5SE]

Congrats on becoming a dad. I'm in the same boat as you. Six weeks now with the little bundle of joy and sleep deprivation is really getting to me. I know exactly what your talking about the screaming for no good reason. We are dealing with colic and reflux, the double whammy. Good luck to you.

[cpemma]

Unfortunately, to get the price of CDs down to a more reasonable figure...

.
So what's a reasonable figure? An average CD is around the same price as a modest night's boozing, half that if you're out with the lady. It's less than the curry you misguidedly go on for, I spend nearly as much on a days fags. Let's grumble about the mark-up on spectacle frames, trainers, any clothing with a pretentious label on it. Even graphics cards, ffs.

For the long-term pleasure a good CD brings I think they're cheap at the price. They only appear expensive because you know so many people are getting the same for free.

[Blademrk]

Originally Posted by 3.5SE

I know exactly what your talking about the screaming for no good reason. We are dealing with colic and reflux, the double whammy.

Tell me about it, I've got 2 of them here, my nephew (16 months) and my niece (4 months).
Cleo suffers with colic really bad, once she starts crying with it you can't stop her... but the smiles you get from her when shes happy more than makes up for it. And Taylor's just started learning to talk (his favourite word so far Hiya, followed by Ta) just wait 'til you get to that stage

[alextwo]

Well the future certainly looks like its going to be more expensive unless there is some kind of mass boycott on computers, TV and music - which wont ever happen because there will allways be more than enough people willing to pay over the odds.

[:: kna ::]

Originally Posted by cpemma

.
So what's a reasonable figure? An average CD is around the same price as a modest night's boozing, half that if you're out with the lady. It's less than the curry you misguidedly go on for, I spend nearly as much on a days fags. Let's grumble about the mark-up on spectacle frames, trainers, any clothing with a pretentious label on it. Even graphics cards, ffs.

For the long-term pleasure a good CD brings I think they're cheap at the price. They only appear expensive because you know so many people are getting the same for free.

a) Cigarettes are an awful example, you spend that much because you're being taxed to hell on something you're addicted to. You would save a lot more money by simply giving up.

b) Yes, absolutely, let's grumble about the markup on everything given it's the same situation. However right now we're talking about CDs.

c) It's been widely known for YEARS, even before the Internet had heard of things like Napster, that the markup on CDs is extortionate and they could be produced, sold and profits made on half the cost, if not quarter.

I could not care less if people are getting them for free, whether that be lack of morals or one-in-the-eye for the record companies. £13 for an album might not be much to you or me, however when I was buying CDs as a kid finding the money to listen to music by bands I liked was hard work and given a very high percentage of the music buying public is the 11-17 age range, I'd say they're very much screwing their fans.

Also, if you have a few new releases in the same month we could be looking at around £60-£90 on picking up a few CDs by your favourite artists. Even for those of us who can afford the odd luxury, that's no small amount to come out of my spare cash. Especially given the fact I'm less likely to want to 'waste' the money on an album I'm unsure about.

There were around 10 albums I wanted this month, a few by newcomers who may be good, however I had to ditch them in favour of established bands because I just couldn't afford to take the risk. I probably have £500 worth of albums now which I hate and wonder what I've missed out on due to the cost.

£13 is too much, £9.99 is a meagre effort.. let's drop to 6 or 7 quid for a new release and we're getting somewhere.

[mclean007]

Originally Posted by :: kna ::

...

It's been widely known for YEARS, even before the Internet had heard of things like Napster, that the markup on CDs is extortionate and they could be produced, sold and profits made on half the cost, if not quarter.

I could not care less if people are getting them for free, whether that be lack of morals or one-in-the-eye for the record companies. £13 for an album might not be much to you or me, however when I was buying CDs as a kid finding the money to listen to music by bands I liked was hard work and given a very high percentage of the music buying public is the 11-17 age range, I'd say they're very much screwing their fans.

...

£13 is too much, £9.99 is a meagre effort.. let's drop to 6 or 7 quid for a new release and we're getting somewhere.

Not so long ago you'd be lucky to get much change out of £15 for a new album, but now it's a lot better due to pressure from the online discount CD stores. You can pick up most new releases for £8.75 or even less if you shop around at amazon, play, cd-wow and the like, and Tesco always has them on at the somewhat bizarre price of £9.77, so the knock-on has been that HMV and co have been forced to stop charging QUITE so extortionately. Even so, there's no way in God's earth I'd pay £13 for something I could have for £8.75 simply by waiting a few days for postage.

[3.5SE]

If you've ever watched Cribs on MTV you'd download your arse off. Some of these guys I've never heard of and the money they throw away is insane. So downloading music has really hurt the artists right?? There are more crap artists out there than ever before. More cookie cutter groups making tons of money. If downloading was as big a problem as they make it out to be then the show would be called Shacks not Cribs. Does one really need more than one Bentley???

[Dodge]

And with the government wanting to stop the TAX loophole with play, prices are just going to go up.