tech industry
07/16/2004, 9:25am, EDT
Friday, July 16th
Microsoft sees music subscriptions as the future
Microsoft is betting that the subscription model for online music purchases, and new players it plans to roll out that support subscription downloads, will trump a la carte music stores. The Wall Street Journal (paid subscription required) notes that proponents of Microsoft's model point out that for just $10 or $20 a month, subscribers will be able to fill up their entire digital player with music, as opposed to the $10,000 or so it would take in iTunes Music Store purchases to fill the 40GB iPod. Microsoft's approach was reportedly a tough sell to record labels at first, but the company pointed out that the average music listener spend $4.66 on music each month, and that subscription services will accordingly generate more money with their monthly fees. When a subscriber stops paying for the service, they lose access to all the music they have downloaded.
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Or....120 songs that I listen to the most, and keep for the rest of my life.
I would rather purchase because I don't have the time to download 10,000 songs and listen to them at the same time.
As for me, I'm going to keep on buying (used) CDs. I'm not going to "rent" my music and I'm not going to pay *anyone* (Apple included) full price for inferior, lossy compressed copies of it. I'm not stupid (well, not entirely at least).
We are already willing to pay whatever for cable and DSL, but are we willing to pay for something that is considered a one off purchase? Maybe some of us, but not all of us.
If I pay for music, I expect the license to be valid for the entire time I physically possess the work.
Good idea, bad execution. Someone really didn't think this one through in Redmond.
They have the money to subsidize a losing music venture indefinitely. Hell, they could buy everyone in the US a new computer and not lose money...
That's probably the MSFT way of doing things. If you stop to pay, you don't get anything... Take your music collection and imagine that you cannot listen to it anymore.