Sprint Lowers Price of Digital Music Downloads

I'd been meaning to blog this and am just getting around to it: a few weeks ago, Sprint decided to lower the price of tracks purchased over-the-air (OTA) from its online store to $0.99, down from $2.49.  It's about time.  They've only sold 15 million tracks since launching the store in November 2005, which is orders of magnitude lower than what iTunes has sold in that timeframe.  Now that's not a fair comparison because you need to control for how many Sprint customers actually have handsets that are music-enabled vs. the penetration of iTunes.  And who knows how many consumers didn't purchase tracks because they knew it couldn't be played on their iPod.  But the big drop in price is an acknowledgement that, as of now, most consumers aren't willing to pay more for the added convenience of being able to purchase and listen to a piece of music on-the-go.  Other carriers like Verizon still charge more than the standard $0.99 for digital music tracks but I'd expect them to also drop their prices.  People have accused the carriers of greed for charging the premium, however it is an established and accepted pricing strategy to charge a premium in a closed/controlled environment and where the consumer's choices are limited -- for example, concessions at ballparks, airports and movie theaters, or internet and minibars at hotels.   The carriers have a closed environment but it seems that most consumers would just as rather wait to download the song from their computer or buy the CD than feel ripped off by paying a premium to buy it from their phones.