Monday, April 5, 2010

The Incredible Bulk

There is no longer reasons to buy in bulk. When I say this I do not just mean going to Sams Club and buying 50 pounds of toilet paper for your family in the Christmas season, I mean buying in bulk with things such as music and television channels. These things are now becoming more and more accessible to individuals by only paying for what they want, and not paying for excessive items. Before people would not be able to afford things like this, but with today's current methods of marketing it is all possible with things like online transactions.

ITunes is a perfect example of this. iTunes currently lets users have the ability to only buy the songs they like for a dollar a song. They are able to go to a song that they heard on the radio and just buy it with a click. No longer are they needed to go out and buy the entire CD that was almost purely gross income for the record company. Record companies are one of the most overpaid industries, but that is irrelevant. Ipods have revolutionized the music industry, not the music. Things like iPods and Zunes now let people customize their music profile with only the songs they like, and none of the 'bulk' extra stuff that normally would be put into a CD player.

To be honest, CD players are starting to become extinct with the new enemy of CD players, the mp3 players. The kids at school laugh at people who walk around with the cheap old CD players now. They are just old news really. 13 songs of the same artist on something twice the size as the device that can carry 10,000 songs. CD players are out.

The last ramble of this is the possible future. I look at television, as they are attempting to implement a new type of viewing, customizing like an iPod. This would let the viewers only pay for the channels they choose to pay for, rather then the current mass package that comes when someone wants the outdoor hunting channel (yeah my hick cousin bought the biggest package for one channel). One of the controversies to this is a poke at ethics. A small channel like a public access channel or a religious channel would have absolutely no chance of having success. No one would want to pay for a channel like this, and no advertisers want to pay to have their advertisements on this channel. It is yet another example of the Rich getting richer. Another reason why this is currently being avoided is because... yes, the rich ARE getting richer. I am speaking of the channel providers. They are continuing to keep their products in bulk so people will be dumb enough to pay for the premium package for the hunting channel. Regardless, they win.

So in fin, I ask, is all this really bad? Mp3 players are a fantastic invention, do not get me wrong. I have multiple to be honest. And also, if I was allowed to pay for my channels, i would. These things are pure beneficial to the viewers and users, but I ask for the ethics behind the people that they are murdering economically. Sometimes things are too good to be true.


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