Nickel downloads - you heard it here first

Almost two years ago I noted that I thought song downloads should be priced somewhere between a nickel and a quarter each. That was based on my own entirely objective questioning of my download jones back in the days of the original Napster, asking myself at what price would I continue to download everything I was interested in on demand - my answer was a nickel.

Now Neeru Paharia reports on a panel at the SXSW Music Festival called the Shape of Things to Come:

The panel somehow converged around the idea of a 5 cent download, and how it would be a better model both economically, and socially. I wonder if anyone has drawn the demand curves to see where there's more money. If marginal cost is close to zero, then you could have 1 million people buying songs for 1 dollar, versus 25 million people buying songs for 5 cents - maybe the lower price wins?

Well, duh. I hope it happens - now that would sell some 60 GB iPod photos!