02/27/2005 10:20:00 PM 
Now hop on to iTunes or visit your local cineplex and you pay the same price for your track or movie. A track recorded by a group of spotty punk kids in a basement in San Diego is priced the same as 23-year rock veterans U2.
You pay the same price for Napoleon Dynamite as Martin Scorsese's The Aviator. It's a numbers game; entertainment experiences all are priced equal, but volume is the name of the game.
However, take U2's forthcoming world tour, supply is restricted by the finite number of dates, venues and hence seats. The economics of supply and demand come in here and before the scalpers enter the market, U2's promoters believe the market can stand an average ticket price for the U2 brand concert experience of $100+.
Influx is certain that we will see movie theaters, distributors, record companies and the music downloads play with pricing far more.
Say Million Dollar Baby cleans up at the Oscars tonight, should the film company limit distribution and raise ticket prices or could movie theaters price seats according to demand like airlines?
Should Wilco only release 50,000 downloads of a new track, but charge more for it?
There are lots of possibilities with pricing that could be explored, but probably aren't yet because movie theaters don't have the technology in place to do it, are fearful of consumer response and music download sites are too busy building audiences to play with price, but it will happen.
Even outside of entertainment, pricing has the potential to be impacted by technology. Imagine a soft-drink vending machine that knows the outside temperature, with pretty simple technology it could change the price of drinks more for a heatwave, less for a big freeze
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