Radiohead Experiment - Success or Failure

Remember when Radiohead left their label and released their new album InRainbows for the price of your choice? 6 months ago no one knew whether Radiohead would succeed or fail in their new paradigm. Peter Kafka says:

"The good news: The average buyer paid about $6, net of processing fees, to download the album. The bad news: There weren't that many buyers -- only 2 out of 5 visitors to the site paid a penny for the tunes.

The net result: Radiohead netted about $2.26 for each album downloaded -- confirming our suspicions that earlier reports/polls about download prices were overly optimistic. And for everyone who thought that "In Rainbows" represented a new paradigm for music, remember: Radiohead has a rabid fan base that was expected to go out of its way to stick it to the man/R.I.A.A."

I agree that only 2 out of 5 visitors paying for the download is not great. It's a start. But, we have to remember that the digital download Radiohead was offering was not to the quality standard that you can purchase from iTunes or get on a CD.

I'm not sure Radiohead knew what they wanted to accomplish with their new experiment. Either you give your fans the best of what you can offer (because that's what they deserve), or offer the lower quality download as a way to get people excited about the album and give it away free. But be upfront about it! Don't lead people to believe they are getting something their not.