iTunes: Now with more money-grubbing goodness

Yeah, the news is talking about a planned price increase on iTunes, where some songs will soon cost $1.29, instead of $.99. I don't shop iTunes, so it doesn't directly affect me.

I still haven't figured out why some tracks on Amazon.com's MP3 downloads cost $.89 and some cost $.99. Their cost to distribute is exactly the same. Either you make money at $.89, or you don't. I'm guessing that they do make money. But I over-simplify, because I'm not including the greedy record company's interests in this equation. So, how is it that the record company gets to set prices, anyway?

Sure, there's a price point that maximizes profits, but I really doubt they've found it because of all the wailing and gnashing of teeth going on in the recording industry. They continue to complain that piracy and P2P are destroying their business, but yet whenever they have a chance to legitimately sell something at a price someone is willing to pay (despite being able to obtain the content for free), they insist on punishing their best customers by raising prices.

If it was really true that you could make more money on the popular tracks by raising your prices, then you really should raise your prices. Keep raising them until your sales maximize. Alternatively, if you raise prices and your revenue drops off, let me suggest you might want to lower them. Of course, here we are talking a non-scarce commodity--MP3 digital music. With this, the only reason to ever raise prices is greed. That's it.

I don't know why iTunes (run by Apple, in case you've been living under a rock) is raising prices on some songs, other than both they and the record companies are simply greedy and want to suck as much out of their customers as possible. That's OK, as long as you don't care if I don't play along.