See here, Bullet point number one:

Logging in with an account originally created in Mac OS X 10.1 or earlier that has a password of 8 or more characters.

Mac OS X 10.1 came out just over six years ago in 2001. If you’ve been using the “upgrade” option every time you update your OS X version, I think it’s time you performed a fresh install. Especially on such an old system (what do you have, an original Quicksilver? No? Older?). If you’ve made it this long without having to do a clean install, congratulations. You’re one of very small number of people. Hell, I haven’t kept a computer for longer than two or three years.

I bought my first Apple in 1997 — PowerPC G3 300Mhz (of the Beige kind). I bought my second Apple in 2000 — Quicksilver 733Mhz (non-shiny doors). Sold the G3 in 2002 (or so). I bought my first Powerbook in 2003 (G4 1Ghz Titanium) slightly used from a nice girl (with buyer’s remorse) in San Francisco. It took a dump about two years ago and I succumbed to way of cheap x86 hardware and Linux. But I redeemed myself about a year and a half ago when I bought my second Apple laptop (Macbook Pro 2.16Ghz).

I digress. What I’m saying is that, even if you’re lucky enough to have the same computer for the last six years (or more), I doubt you’d be as lucky going through four separate system upgrades (assuming you upgraded every version). Even if you didn’t and you went from 10.1 directly to 10.5, I highly doubt Apple spent much time testing that upgrade path (if at all).

View from the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, CA

• 2560×1024

Radiohead is free from their EMI contract and free to do what they will with their latest release. Sell where they want, when they want and charge whatever they want for it as well. Which is why it makes sense to do what they are doing now: Sell it for how much YOU, the listener, thinks it (or the band itself) is worth. I imagine it’s akin to jumping down a rabbit hole; you never know where the idea of leaving it up to the consumer to pay for your products will end up. I’m not quite sure how it will pan out, but I’m fairly confident that Radiohead will make out O.K.

I’ll admit that when I first read of the It’s up to you pricing scheme of the new release, the first thing that popped into my head was, “Sweet! Free music without the guilt.” But then I stopped to think about what Radiohead was actually doing. They could charge whatever they wanted for the digital download of In Rainbows (even if it were only a few bucks for the album). They spent the better part of two and half years working on this album. Even if they didn’t work 40 hour work weeks writing/recording/mixing, it’s still a chunk of someone’s life. What’s that worth?

I know Radiohead could probably afford to just give the download away, but then the album would loose it’s worth. A friend of mine told me a story about this rather nice office chair he wanted gone. It was your average office chair and was in pretty good shape. He had put it out on the sidewalk in front of his house with a sign that read “FREE.” The chair sat in the same place for a week. No one wanted it. After a week, he put a different sign on it. This sign read “$5.” The chair was gone by the time he got home from work. It’s like the word “Free” has a neutral connotation (maybe even negative for some people) where it means, “Oooh, it’s FREE!” or “It’s free? Why?” I suppose it also depends on the “what” as well, but there are a LOT of people downloading free music everyday (just ask the record labels).

For me, I’m much more willing to shell out a ten-spot for an album when I know that most of that will end up directly in the pockets of the artists. In fact, I was “this” close to pulling the trigger this afternoon on the pre-sale, but I was either too lazy or too busy to pull the wallet out of my back pocket to get my credit card. I will buy this album. I won’t say for how much.

The only possible downside of this pricing scheme maybe the guilt factor of paying too little over paying nothing at all. It’s easier to just leave the field blank than to have to quantify the value of the album/artist. Even when you really like the artist and have complete faith that the album will nothing short of stellar. However, that said, I also believe most people are honest (maybe I’m naive). I predict more people will pay something than nothing. It will be interesting to see how this pans out.

Thom, if you’re reading this, drop me a line in 6 months and let me know how well this business model works out.