UK iTunes Music Store is too expensive says Consumers' Association

[asheep_uk]

Staring to get some results from the Great Rip-Off Britain now.

The iTunes Music Store in the UK charges £0.79 for a song, the US is $0.99 and France & Germany €0.99. Convert €0.99 into £ and you get £0.67

Now, the iTunes Music Store is a lot cheaper than buying a CD, so I'm happy and I've bought all my songs from there since it's come out; but the Consumers' Association is quite rightly saying that it's too expensive.

I have two things about this.
First of all, all CDs are too expensive, so the Consumers' Association should really point out the fact all CDs (and pretty much everything) is more expensive in the UK and everybody gets away with it apart from when exactly the same service is offered.

My second thing is, if Britain joined the Euro, Apple would never beable to get away with making the price increase in Britain and therefore we would get our music for cheaper - as well as a lot of other stuff.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3658200.stm

[jamble]

Apple products too expensive say consumers association ......

iTunes is a joke in this country, at £0.99 a track, it's actually no cheaper than ordering a CD off amazon which I'd much rather do than tart around downloading and then getting the album art printed etc.

Downloadable music such as iTunes doesn't seem to get the point that they're competing with something that is available (illegally of course) for £0.00.

To be honest, I'd much rather order an album from amazon at the same (or less) cost than iTunes and until downloadable tracks have a reallistic price (I consider reallistic to be no more than £5-6 for a 12 track album) then they're never going to get a truly amazing level of downloads.

[asheep_uk]

Well, if Apple lower their prices to say £0.69, then that makes albums about £5/6 - so yay.

I suppose, like you say, buying a CD and buying songs on the 'net are different things. You can't order your 3 favourite tracks off Queen's Greatest Hits 2 from Amazon.

[jamble]

Originally posted by asheep_uk
Well, if Apple lower their prices to say £0.69, then that makes albums about £5/6 - so yay.

I suppose, like you say, buying a CD and buying songs on the 'net are different things. You can't order your 3 favourite tracks off Queen's Greatest Hits 2 from Amazon.

True, I think that's the obvious benefit of a download service in terms of only getting the tracks you want rather than an album filler.

I think though I'd still prefer to buy the music in a case with the original album artwork. I still also buy LP's too which they've not quite managed to get right on downloads

Don't you find it insulting as an apple fan that you know full well what they charge for digital files in the US and throughout Europe yet they insult you by charging more for them because you're in the UK when the operating costs of the service are not going to be any higher in the UK!?

[asheep_uk]

As a British resident I get annoyed that our food, cars, transport, fuel, computers, music, hardware, houses and bascily everything is more expensive than Europe and the US. 79p is what I expected and that's what everybody else is charging, infact, some other companies are charging 99p per song - so I'm happy with what I'm getting.

I'm moving to Prauge.

[jamble]

Originally posted by asheep_uk
I'm moving to Prauge.

Now that's a switch I could make.

[asheep_uk]

Originally posted by jamble7000
Now that's a switch I could make.

I haven't been there for years, it was really beautiful - have you been?