Apple Found Guilty of Price Fixing

[mope54]

Ding ding ding!

First rule of business: Avoid price wars. Compete on "features", because a feature war doesn't hurt profits.

that would be the first rule of a failing business model
in fact, that's exactly what Sony tried to do and lost
Apple is unique in this regard but they haven't had very much market penetration with most of their products and argue that's not what they are trying to do anyway

in general, though, consumers purchase on price and not much else matters

 

[rat]

Porn movies were not 90 minutes. Long ones were 60. Many were 15-30.

You sure about that? Plenty of 2 hour videos out there. (Protip: I used to work in a video shop that rented porn. Hell, our porn collection was more than twice of what was available as rentable movies)

THIS is the reason VHS won:

 

[Cbshahji]

THIS is the reason VHS won:

Holly smocks how much does this thing worth now? i've one laying around gonna have to check if it's working or not.

 

[mope54]

might be able to get $5 bucks down at a pawn shop if you're lucky

 

[Qinsp]

You sure about that? Plenty of 2 hour videos out there. (Protip: I used to work in a video shop that rented porn. Hell, our porn collection was more than twice of what was available as rentable movies)

THIS is the reason VHS won:

If you ever actually put more than 2 hours on a VHS tape, you'd see why it wasn't popular. Movies like Titanic came on 2 tapes, even though they would fit on one. Extended formats were mucho sucko.

I had some VHS 30min pron tapes.

Even the best quality VHS never came close to Beta or Laser Disc, and DVD made them a joke. DVD's were killing off VHS even when the DVD players were twice as much money due to better image quality (and no rewinding).

 

[kbrickley]

that would be the first rule of a failing business model
in fact, that's exactly what Sony tried to do and lost
Apple is unique in this regard but they haven't had very much market penetration with most of their products and argue that's not what they are trying to do anyway

in general, though, consumers purchase on price and not much else matters

Except the market does like pricing tiers ... you notice the carriers have lots of phones at the $99 and $199 levels with the differences between them being features ... another trick is that cheap things get to compete on price ... more expensive items tend to compete on features

 

[pxc]

I liked this section from the judge's decision (time is right after the iPad 1 launch):

When asked by a reporter later that day why people would pay $14.99 in the iBookstore to purchase an e-book that was selling at Amazon for $9.99, Jobs told a reporter, “Well, that won’t be the case.” When the reporter sought to clarify, “You mean you won’t be $14.99 or they won’t be $9.99?” Jobs paused, and with a knowing nod responded, “The price will be the same” and explained that “Publishers are actually withholding their books from Amazon because they are not happy.”

With that statement, Jobs acknowledged his understanding that the Publisher Defendants would now wrest control of pricing from Amazon and raise e-book prices, and that Apple would not have to face any competition from Amazon on price.

The import of Jobs’s statement was obvious. On January 29, the General Counsel of S&S [Simon & Schuster] wrote to [Simon & Schuster CEO Carolyn] Reidy that she “cannot believe that Jobs made the statement” and considered it “ncredibly stupid.”

This chart is good too:

Spoiler: pic size

brb, going to laugh at insane Apple fans.

 

[dgz]

This is the point that many are missing. There was a provision that nobody could have a lower price than Apple. That's price fixing.

This is exactly what price fixing means.

 

[rat]

If you ever actually put more than 2 hours on a VHS tape, you'd see why it wasn't popular. Movies like Titanic came on 2 tapes, even though they would fit on one. Extended formats were mucho sucko.

People recording their tv shows didn't care. They needed all 8 hours.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videotape_format_war

While VHS machines' lower retail price was a major factor, the principal battleground proved to be recording time. The original Sony Betamax video recorder for the NTSC television system could only record for 60 minutes, identical to the previous U-matic format, which had been sufficient for use in television studios. JVC's VHS could manage 120 minutes, followed by RCA's entrance into the market with a 240 minute recorder. These challenges sparked a mini-war to see who could achieve the longest recording time.

 

[Kueller]

If you ever actually put more than 2 hours on a VHS tape, you'd see why it wasn't popular. Movies like Titanic came on 2 tapes, even though they would fit on one. Extended formats were mucho sucko.

I had some VHS 30min pron tapes.

Even the best quality VHS never came close to Beta or Laser Disc, and DVD made them a joke. DVD's were killing off VHS even when the DVD players were twice as much money due to better image quality (and no rewinding).

Oh Laserdisc! I bought a laserdisc player just for Star Wars.
Not when they came out, but a number of years ago when one of the local schools was selling off old equipment.

 

[Nenu]

I've still got my Starwars laserdiscs, might be worth something!

 

[dandirk]

I've still got my Starwars laserdiscs, might be worth something!

probably I think it is still considered the best quality version of the original theatrical release.

If I remember right the HD mashups that are out there, take a lot of content from the LD version.

Though I know there was one DVD set that actually included the original version but I don't think it was improved or anything. I know it still was letterboxed for 4:3 sets, I had to edit my rip to fit my widescreen...

 

[SomeoneElse]

Says who? Not that I disagree with the argument, but seriously who says real must cost more than digital? There's no law that says that must be true, I mean think of it as a convenience fee that apparently is perfectly legal whenever you buy tickets online that very often makes those "e-tickets" cost more than buying tickets in person.

Im not making the point at which its a legal issue how much manufacturing cost are, I'm just saying digital distribution is logically cheaper to use than moving physical products. I also agree with you the "convenience fees" piss me off because they are just making more money off of the consumer. Most of the time those fees are the fees they pass from the credit card "swipe fees" to the actual purchaser. I hate the state of business right now. Greed has definitely taken over.