Digital Audio Insider took a look at the inflation-adjusted price of a download at iTunes (and has a nice multicolor graph to boot). In 2003 dollars (since iTunes was launched in 2003) a download today costs only $0.86. If download prices had risen with inflation, they would now cost $1.14.

It's good food for thought that will matter to very few of us. Millions of music buyers have long ignored the downward trajectory of the inflation-adjusted cost of CDs over the last two decades. Drops in the real price of CDs didn't prevent consumers from feeling ripped off. Not even a drop in the nominal price of CDs (read this and this) could change their opinion. It all adds to the confusion of the day. Labels are both hesitant to cater to the out-priced and eager to find a product that will lure them back in....thus ideas like the CD 2.0.

Extra credit reading: This October 2003 article at the New York Times is a neat little time capsule on iTunes initial (and still today) pricing strategy. "'Who the hell knows?' (a music executive) said of the pricing decision. 'It's a shot in the dark.'"

[music jobs] Brand and Online Marketing Manager at The Ascot Club/Am Only; Brooklyn, NY.