Music: Fixed-Cost or Subscription?

[Pangloss]

What do you prefer? Paying a fixed cost per download, or paying a monthly, all-you-can-eat subscription fee? (Illegal downloads do not count here -- take your pirating ways elsewhere, yarr!)

 

I've been a subscription fan for a while now, but I recently had to deal with the down side of this approach when the service I was using went out of business (Microsoft's Urge) and all my toons expired leaving my player full of unplayable songs. Still, I would have had to pay almost $4,000 for that same set of music had I bought them all individually. That's a lot of cash, and the only real inconvenience was that I had to hit the delete button.

 

Word came yesterday along the Internet grapevine that Apple is finally considering a subscription service for iTunes.

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2008/tc20080319_503917.htm?chan=rss_topStories_ssi_5

 

What do you all think?

[ecoli]

you should go with iTunes... it's probably the least likely to out of business right now. Plus they're AAC files, so you can convert them to mp3s and save them.

 

Personally, I still prefer physical medium. CDs but mostly LPs.

 

Otherwise I just borrow mp3s from friends.

[iNow]

Yeah, I have little preference either way, as I almost never buy music. I see your original question as presenting a bit of a false dichotomy. I think the more likely trend is that people will just share files for free... I appreciate that this doesn't address the challenge of how you distribute new music, but once a single person has the source file, it spreads like wildfire...

[thedarkshade]

I guess the way I get into music I like is not counted here, but.... ummmm... I still enjoy listening to them, and for my own good, they're considered rebelling songs so they usually come out free, and if not, there's always a back door.

 

Believe it or not, I have never in my life bought any music CD of any sort, not by cash or by credit card or by internet. Just got them for free:D:D

[Pangloss]

It's a good point about sharing may rise again. The recent onslaught of DRM-free providers would seem to be pointing in that direction.

 

I'd love to use iTunes, I just don't want to pay $10,000 for 10,000 songs. I'd rather pay $20/month for 10,000 songs. Makes a lot more sense. I love the fact that I can download new artists or old artists that come recommended from friends without having to spend any extra money. I should explain that I like to do that a lot -- exploring different artists and musical styles. I go through music like most people go through bottled water.

 

Maybe I need to revisit the sharing issue. I just don't like the legal aspect of it.

[thedarkshade]

I just don't like the legal aspect of it.

Well, with this you are one in 5 million my friend. Get over it!

[bascule]

I definitely prefer an all-you-can-eat approach. However, it obviously fails when there's DRM involved that requires authenticating against a central service whenever you wish to use the content.

[ParanoiA]

I refuse to participate in the DRM rip off. If I buy something, it's done, I own it. Any business that rejects that model, rejects my business.

 

That in mind, I would prefer a fee per download. The only problem there being that artists want too much for their art. I don't think they're worth that much. I give mine away for free, as many amateurs do and many of us think the commercial side of it is basically fast-food music. Radiohead's new album 'In Rainbows' is a fee to download, but you get to decide the price. I gave them 5 euros. They're worth about that much. And that's about as much as anyone should pay for an album.

[Pangloss]

I don't want to keep the music. I just want to rent it a while. But I definitely see those points. I totally agree with bascule's point about checking in with a central DRM server. In my case the music files played for 30 days after the service went down, iirc, then went belly-up. A grace period is nice (who's connected ALL the time?), but I can see how it might have timed out for other reasons and been an inconvenience even if the service was still running.

 

Isn't it interesting, though, that the general perception out there is that on-demand movies are going to overwhelm platter-based movie media in the next few years? Most people don't collect movies the way they collect music, of course, or play movies in the background while working or driving (although I keep seeing people with in-car monitors, pointed at the driver, playing DVDs while they're driving on the highway! who are these idiots?!).

 

But if the advantage of on-demand movies is that you can see what you want when you want, couldn't the same advantage apply to music? I think it's interesting that we're okay with temporary rental with movies, but not typically with music.

[antimatter]

 

Personally, I still prefer physical medium. CDs but mostly LPs.

 

I have a friend sort of like you, but he hates digital music, he just buys CD's.

I'm like that to, but to less of an extent, I'm alright downloading music,

though I do like to have physical manifestations of some of my favorite CD's.

 

I have a few LP's, mostly jazz, but it's getting harder to find them in stores.