Thanks to Rob, I found out today that Paste Magazine is following in the footsteps of Radiohead and are giving subscriptions for a price determined by the buyer (full story). It seems like an awsome idea. As stated in the article though, paste readers do not have the same devotion that Radiohead fans have. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
This is only a promotion that is going on for 2 weeks. You can sign up here: https://sfsdata.com/PASTE/PAGNYOP.aspx?key=9ISO114
Let me know if you sign up. I did… $7 for a year of Paste = GREAT DEAL!
Yeah, I’d agree that its pretty cool…and an interesting experiment. I’d be interested in hearing exactly what the demographic breakdowns are as far as who bought the album (age, sex, etc), and what they paid for it. I signed up as well. I paid $5 (where I would otherwise not get it at all), and maybe I’ll get turned on enough to renew at full price, which is still a really good deal.
I heard on the radio that 60% of the people who order Radiohead music paid $0 for it and the average amount was just over $7.00…
Hmm. Thats interesting. I heard they made a net of over $9 million. Also, it is good to note that in order to break even, Radiohead would have had to have made an average of $1.50 per album downloaded.
Other bands have already started trying to follow. Saul Williams has released his newest album under the same business model. We will see how well it works for a band without the millions of followers that Radiohead has built over the years.