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Digital Top Stories
Amazon servers struggle to meet demand for one dollar Gaga
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 24 May 2011
So, many in the music business were unhappy when Amazon launched its unlicensed music storage service recently without even trying to get the music companies on board as partners. Others dislike Amazon’s habit of gaining competitive advantage by selling big releases at slashed down prices, taking a hit (ie the company still pays the full wholesale price to the label) in a bid to score some new customer accounts. While fans undoubtedly benefit at Amazon’s expense, some argue it devalues the music itself.
Yesterday Amazon combined both, selling Lady Gaga’s new album ‘Born This Way’ to US consumers for a mere 99 cents, seemingly in a bid to push its new digital locker service. Many of those who flocked to Amazon’s MP3 store to take advantage of the bargain basement deal would have been exposed to the web firm’s new music storage service for the first time, and all of them were told that by buying the Gaga album, even at 99 cents, they’d be eligible for a free upgrade to a full 20GB storage account, which normally costs twenty dollars a year.
With all that in mind, some in the US music business possibly smiled when they heard that the complaints were mounting. Even Amazon’s mega-servers were struggling to cope with the volume of Gaga fans flocking for the bargain offer, causing the Amazon MP3 service to falter, and leaving some customers disappointed (and not because the second Gaga album is in itself a bit disappointing, but because, as downloads failed or took an age, they didn’t have the opportunity to experience the disappointing songs for themselves).
Not all Gaga-buying Amazon customers experienced delays or failing downloads, but many did. Amazon issued a statement yesterday morning admitting: “Amazon is experiencing high volume and downloads are delayed. [But] if customers order today, they will get the full Lady Gaga, ‘Born This Way’ album for $0.99. Thanks for your patience”.
So, did Amazon’s grand plan to flog its unlicensed locker service by devaluing one of the record industry’s biggest releases of the year backfire? Possibly. Though the record industry itself was maybe also a loser on this one, as Billboard noted, one Amazon customer left a comment on the etail website saying “this experience is horrible and is why people are stealing music instead of buying”.
