

Micropayments for news: The holy grail or just a dangerous delusion?  - edw519
http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/09/micropayments-for-news-the-holy-grail-or-just-a-dangerous-delusion/

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ErrantX
The Itunes argument is innacurate (I think pg gets it wrong too when he makes
a slightly different point in his publishing essay
<http://www.paulgraham.com/publishing.html>).

The key to Itunes is not technically speaking a monopoly: it is _convenience_.
You can obtain digital media from any other source and import it into Itunes.

Where Apple hold the monopoly is in the path to the Ipod (aka Itunes). Using
THAT monopoly they can provide a convenient way to get your music within
Itunes - at a low enough cost (a point pg made) for it often to be worth it.

Apple's convenience in Itunes arises out of their monopoly; but there is no
reason it cant come about in another way in the publishing field. If we sit
and look at what is _really inconvenient_ for consumers of online publishing
and try to solve that we might have another way to monetize it.

(I realise feed readers is potentially a solution to one of the biggest
inconveniences)

~~~
diN0bot
dude, it's iTunes. (seriously. it's like reading a name literally versus the
immediate brand and big-picture recognition of seeing a logo.)

