It’s no secret to those of you who know me that I’m fanatical about music. If I’m not going to a concert, I’m downloading tracks off iTunes, presenting concerts (my hobby for the past 19 years has been concert promotion), reading music bios, and amazingly in 2014, still buying the occasional CD. Most of those are from this great label Ace Records out of England, a company that put out amazing and eclectic compilations with terrific liner notes. I read those liner notes religiously.
I also read this blog about the music business, The Lefsetz Letter. The writer Bob Lefsetz, is entertaining, thought provoking, insightful, and sometimes infuriating. A recent column comparing music to technology was entertaining and insightful, particularly after attending all these office imaging events where a strong emphasis was placed on technologies and trends that are changing the office imaging industry. Here’s selected excerpts from the column “Music/Tech”, take from it what you will:
Stereo
You saved to get the best reproduction system you could afford, upgrading your stereo along the way.
Now you want the best mobile handset you can afford. They might look cheap, being subsidized by the carrier, but a good handset retails for $600-800, and unlike with stereo there is no haggling/discount.
Lineup
You used to line up to buy concert tickets.
Now you line up to buy gadgets, most famously at the Apple Store.
Goal
You used to want to be a musical star.
Now you want to be a tech star.
And in both cases, the goal was similar, to sell out. Every app developer wants a deep pocket to buy them out, oftentimes quickly, the same way acts wanted a record deal. As for getting screwed by the label… In tech you’re screwed by the intermediary, the venture capitalist, who squeezes your share down.
Info
You used to subscribe to Crawdaddy, Fusion, Rolling Stone and Zoo World. Information was limited.
Today you surf sites endlessly ferreting out the truth, and you can talk back and be heard.
What Have You Done for Me Lately?
You were only as good as your last album, if you didn’t continue to deliver your career faded away.
Google and Amazon and Apple and Facebook continue to develop. If you stand still you’re toast.
Souvenir
Was an autograph.
Now it’s a photograph.
Planned Obsolescence
From vinyl to 8-track to cassette to CD to MP3 to stream in music. You had to pay for the same thing over and over again.
Moore’s Law has us replacing our gadgets constantly in tech. If you’re broke, you cannot play.
Breaking Acts/Apps
Radio was king.
Today word of mouth is king.
Cool
The acts.
Now it’s the gadgets. The acts are to be made fun of. The true heroes are the smarties in the tech world, who innovate constantly and continue to dazzle us. Their goal is to disrupt and profit. The acts’ goal is to be the same and profit, and that’s much less interesting. Furthermore, in music packaging is paramount, in tech there’s almost no packaging left. All software is downloadable and instantly available.
Free
In tech so much is free, whether it be the apps on your computer or the websites you visit. Techies realize a user can be monetized in many ways, and to charge too soon is detrimental.
In music everybody’s a street hustler who demands to get paid at every stop along the way. This short term thinking has held the business back. The key is to get everybody in the ecosystem and then upsell them, the same way iPod users bought Macs then iPhones and iPads.
We may be in the office imaging industry, but the parallels between music and tech and our industry are something we can all relate to.
Thanks for reading.
