When Domains Collide: The Apple-Time Bonk
July 30, 2010
My NFAIS lecture will appear in a forthcoming book of essays. I won’t drag you through the argument in that write up. I do want to call your attention to “Apple Blocks Time, Others from Running iPad Subscriptions.” The issue is that Apple is taking a somewhat arbitrary stand with regard to a publisher using the Apple ecosystem sell an Apple device user a subscription without Apple being in the middle. For me the key passage in the write up was:
Why Apple would reject subscriptions isn’t known, but it’s speculated that the company may be worried about how publishers would use the consumer data collected with each subscription, even though such collection is standard in the print world. Apple might alternately be worried about missed revenue opportunities, since allowing direct payment for subscriptions would cut the company out of some or a lot of income. The latter approach would be incongruous though, since Amazon and the Wall Street Journal can already bill customers directly in some cases.
The view from the goose pond is easy to explain. Publishers want control but no longer own the distribution channel. Apple owns the distribution channel, including the bank, the customer, and the information pipeline. Apple wants control and will take it until someone or something prevents Apple from doing what it wants. Publishers on the other hand think they are in control.
When domains collide, the nature of who is on top guarantees friction between those who are crushing others and who is being crushed. In this battle, the publishers like the music folks are learning that the person with power pretty much calls the shots.
Solution: find a way to regain control. This might be tough because a core competency in distributing information in a 19th century world does not mean much in the data-centric world of 2010. Apple, which was a possible dead on arrival company two or three times in the last 20 years found a way to survive. Now publishers have to find their solution.
Complaining and trying to be clever in order to “work around” the Apple guidelines won’t work. Anyway, it may be too late.
Stephen E Arnold, July 30, 2010
Freebie, unlike a single copy of Time
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