Lips on a Pig

Really intelligent commentary on why business types should never be involved with tech by MurryC.

"Checked into Amazon to buy a couple of new books for my eReader. Lo and behold, here's what I find for my book of choice: mass market paperback (the physical object that costs money to make, stock and ship) @ $10.17

the Kindle version (that has no production costs at all and almost none for distribution) @ $9.99

A differential cost of $0.18??!! Wait, it gets better. I can buy a new version (hardback) for $6.71! (granted, not from Amazon, but still...)

I thought the record companies were the stupidest folks I'd seen, but at least they had the excuse of going first.

Don't know if the blame ought to land on Amazon or the publisher, but regardless this is not a rational business model. Rather, the triumph of quarterly earnings quotas that comes with subservience to the toxic combination of large media companies and 28-year old Wall Street MBAs telling you what revenue you ought to make...then slagging you if you don't. A great way to destroy any planning horizon longer than 90 days.

Short answer, if this continues I stop buying, even if the product is attractive. Too bad Amazon doesn't have the balls of Apple to break the busted business models of dinosaur conglomerates. (Can you tell I'm pissed off? Oh, as a counter-example the NYTimes has the good sense to charge less for a Reader subscription than the cost of buying the physical object--at least for now. Let's hope some other 28-year old MBA at a consulting company doesn't get the ear of the C-suite and screws that pooch.)"

The disconnect of tech to business never ends, (this also applies to politics and finance as well) a subject to be discussed in depth by yours truly and the esteemed MurryC in Everything's Alive, Part II.