A Spot on Apple over Pricing

It’s not often that Apple is seen taking a stumble, which is why the recent brushfire over the iPhone price drop was quite unique. Steve Jobs belated gesture of $100 back to earlier iPhone adopters quieted things down a bit until the whole 1.1.1 update “iBrick” thing set things off again. At the same time last summer, Jobs was in a tiff with NBC over iTunes pricing of their TV shows, which led to the dropping of NBC new shows from the service.

From his article last month in the New York Times, David Carr compares these two events, and puts a sharp point on inconsistencies how Apple prices and consequently places value on the products and services it markets. The point that both a song by Kanye West and a Barry Manilow/Lily Tomlin duet can’t be worth the same 99 cents is apt. The recent price drop for DRM free recordings is a move in the right direction, since DRM provides no value to consumers.

Dynamic pricing is something that Web 2.0 should be bringing to consumers. What is strange is that one of the most dynamic technology innovators of this latest tech boom is still clinging to a Web 1.0 pricing model.