4. The Great Ipod Scam: Your Ipod Is Not Your Pet Kitty

[Still more Twilight Zone theme music; fade to Gerber in yet another "Who Designed This Crap?" rage.]

"Why in the name of Ritchie Valens do they use that lower case 'i'? Who designed this crap?

As I mentioned earlier I saved the most disturbing sub-scam of the Great Ipod Scam for last. It all starts with that blasted lower case "i" in "Ipod" and "Itunes". You may have noticed that I have consistently used "Ipod" and "Itunes" throughout this article and you may be wondering why. It's not a typo. Not a typo? How could I have the audacity to use a capital "I" intentionally when speaking of products that are "icons of twenty first century design"?

I'll tell you how. The cutesy lower case "i" is there to make you feel about the Ipod and Itunes like you feel about your sweet little kitty. Inanimate vs. animate characteristics aside, the minimal monetary difference between the Ipod and Itunes and your kitty, is somewhere around 50 cents a day in the kitty's favor, depending on the cost of your Itunes habit and the cost of what you feed your kitty. And, I bet it didn't cost most of you a minimum of over $50 an ounce to acquire your kitty.

The Ipod is a marketing miracle. It's the story of old-time film cameras and modern-day printers all over again, but with a twist. In the old days film manufacturers almost gave away their consumer oriented cameras, because they knew the real money was in repetitive purchases of film and film developing. Today the big-time printer manufacturers almost give away their consumer oriented printers, because they know the real money is in printer cartridges and paper.

The twist with the Ipod is that - though the real money is in Itunes content - Steve Jobs and his crew of merry pranksters aren't exactly giving away Ipods. Rather they're selling them for considerably more than it takes to make them and then, with Itunes, hooking a great majority of Ipod owners with the oldest come on in marketing, "Hey, buy another song it's only 99 cents."

If you think Mr. Jobs and friends want to spread joy all over the world with their cute little music and video player, consider this from In-Stat, a respected advanced communications analysis company. On-line downloaded music sales in 2005 totaled $1.5 billion. Fully 53% of on-line music purchasers used Itunes. Nice huh. Well, the plot gets thicker: In-Stat projects that by 2007 on-line downloaded music sales will outpace on-line purchases of music CDs and music on other physical media. And if that's not enough to show you where the Jobs Jaugernaught is headed, total downloaded music sales are expected to hit $10.7 billion by 2010. "Is that too cynical a view?" he said for the last time, a slight smile playing across his lips.