you have to understand, this discbox is selling for 80 bucks, but its going to be a limited run. you think they’re going to sell it forever? people are crying right now that its too expensive. wait a couple of years down the line when the discbox is out of print. its going to be selling for twice as much on ebay and those who were whinning about it being too expensive are going to be crying EVEN HARDER. truth is, you’re shelling out money for a TRUE COLLECTOR’S ITEM, not “eight extra songs” like you pointed out.

However, if you collect vinyl and imports, it’s not a bad deal at all. Radiohead LPs go for $20-$50, and if you think of the bonus disc as an import EP you’d probably be shelling out $30 to get it, plus the artwork. And the price tag on the discbox includes shipping, which can be very expensive if you’re outside the UK. Considering all this, $80 may still be slightly overpriced, but I really don’t think it’s asking too much if you’re a serious music collector.

Not only that, but we don’t actually know for sure if the download will affect CD sales. Personally, I’ve talked to a lot of people who can’t wait to get the CD because they want to hear In Rainbows at a higher bitrate but didn’t want to buy the discbox. Anyway, ignoring the CD sales, you can look at it this way: there’s basically no production cost for the download. Yes, I’m sure they’ve paid quite a bit for that fancy hosting of theirs, but I bet that doesn’t come close to the cost of printing and distributing albums. So when users DO pay for the download, it’s almost pure profit. They don’t need to be “subsidized” by discbox sales.