Business Insight Zone

I’ve railed — more than once — about the misguided attempts of the RIAA and the big music labels to circumvent the realities of digital music. But I’m just a guy trying to make sense of it from the sidelines, so you don’t need to take my word for it. Instead, give a listen to Yahoo! Music’s Ian Rodgers as he talks to folks from the music industry:

…eight years later, Amazon’s finally done what was clearly the right solution in 1999. Music in the format that people actually want it in, with a Web-based experience that’s simple and works with any device. I bought tracks from Amazon (Kevin Drew and No Age), downloaded them, sync’d them to my new iPod Nano, and had them playing in my home audio system (Control 4) in less than five minutes. PRAISE JESUS. It only took 8 years.

8 years. How much opportunity have we lost in those 8 years? How much naivety and hubris did we have when we said, “if we build it they will come”? What did we spend? And what did we gain? We certainly didn’t gain mass user adoption or trust, two prerequisites to success on the Internet….

Here’s the link to the full post. (Thanks to BoingBoing.)

Category: Entertainment, Internet