[Sigia-l] Buy or rent?

[Listera]

Skot Nelson:

> music is a product

The whole point of the Napster/Microsoft approach is to change the notion
that music is a product. They'd like you to regard it as momentary
experience, the source of which, as the argument goes, is immaterial.

This goes beyond just music. Grid promoters IBM and Sun want you to rent
computer power, something you've been accustomed to purchase in the form of
computer products. Your phone company wants you to rent voice mail rather
than purchase an answering machine as a product. Microsoft wants you to rent
software perpetually than be stuck at a specific version you once purchased
as a product (a huge problem for them). And a variety of ASPs want you to
rent software that you used to buy as products.

The transformation here points towards a state where if something is digital
it will be de-productized (how's that for a word) into a rentable item. We
are quite far from reaching that state, where a lot of territory still
remains unchartered.

> loyalty has been a goal of commerce since day one

I don't think commercial history supports that at all. Perhaps the most
commercially successful company around, MSFT, hasn't relied on loyalty to
amass $50 billion in the bank. Loyalty helps but is not absolutely
essential. Yahoo, after all, is considered successful. It's been more
successful than 98% of all dotcom companies, some with very
enthusiastic/loyal (former) users.

Napster's problem, to cite one example, is *not* that Apple's customers are
so loyal.

Ziya
Nullius in Verba