itunes is a rip off for both consumers and artists, which is partly why it took so long for the beatles to join up, and why other artists won't join. apple pay a fixed amount to artists per track/album and want to sell at fixed amounts, so you pay the same per track for a top name band as you would for something some guy knocked up in his bedroom
also you might have noticed the frequency of discounted itunes vouchers, such as buy one, get another half price. this reduces apples profits, and of course the retailer still needs to make a cut, and you have VAT on the end sale. thus these things all go to affecting the price, which is why the prices are so inflated. apple are trying to make things more appealing with the deluxe editions that include 3 or 4 videos and a pdf file of the artwork/booklet
the thing is, whilst some people prefer the cds for a physical format and rip that to the pc, many others have noticed the cd just takes up space at home and they want a quick fix of the music and don't care too much about having lossless quality as they are playing on ipods with headphones, so the downloads do appeal to the masses
i was only thinking last night about the amount of space taken up by records, cds and dvds, and how i can fit the whole lock in my jacket pockets on current technology hard drives. if you think about the microSD cards that now go up to 32gb (or is 64gb now possible), and how much music you can fit on something the size of a postage stamp, and what will fit on that size in 10 years time, we'll soon be able to have entire collections of music on something the size of a stamp, in fact some people already do or can, but i mean collectors with massive collections. instead of taking up half a room when i rarely play the actual discs, i can fit it in the palm of my hand instead and reclaim space in my flat
