mike wilson mused: > > Not sure I agree with you (I don't think the photographer analogy stands > up at all) and I still don't understand why music CDs are so much > cheaper, given the development costs are similar.
You're confusing unit manufacturing cost with product development cost. A decent music CD can be put together in a year by maybe a couple of dozen people, probably not even working full time on making the CD. Something like PhotoShop involves more like a couple of hundred people during a multi-year development phase, not to mention needing product support (there's no post-sales support on a music CD). Factor in the fact that software engineers tend to be rather higher paid than most musicians, and a 40-to-one price ratio doesn't seem that ridiculous.
