nat's Profile

In reference to Starbucks, ubiquity is not the same as over-saturation. If the market were over saturated, the company would stop opening new stores. I'm sure that the occasional Starbucks store is closed for whatever reason, but the company surely has a method of determining each individual location's market in reference to opening new stores. I'm sure apple goes through similar planning when opening new stores, considering population density, median income, etc. You could make the "how many stores can there be" argument against any retailer high- or low-end. I don't see how iPod only stores would be necessary. Apple already has essentially a two-tiered retail strategy anyway, with the "flagship" stores like the new New York store and the downtown Chicago store and the second level shopping mall-type stores in other smaller markets. I could see them forming partnerships with other retailers to sell iPods in Nike stores, for example; but it makes no sense to open an iPod only store and eliminate the possibility of selling anything more in that market.

The statement that iPod users can only use ITMS is false. My iPod is full of mp3s from eMusic, from band and label websites, ripped from my cds, etc. How, exactly, am I being forced to use ITMS? I might buy this argument if the iPod only played DRMed AAC files, but the last time i checked, mp3 was an open format that anyone could choose to support. I'm also not locked into Apple's AAC format. All I have to do is burn an audio cd from my purchased files, and I can then re-import them in any format I want. Sure it's not perfect, but I'm not LOCKED IN like I would be if ITMS were to start using WMV files. Yes, it's sort of a lesser of two evils issue, but I don't understand how Apple, the company with the LESS RESTRICTIVE system is the bad guy here.