Yahoo Introduces Competitor for iTunes 819
LadyDeath writes "After a year in development, Yahoo has launched its competitor to Apple's iTunes and Napster To Go, a subscription and download music service priced at only $4.99 per month. Tracks are offered in 192Kbps WMA, and can be transferred to portable devices. Perhaps most interesting to the Slashdot crowd is that the Yahoo! Music Engine is built on an open platform that facilitates plug-ins - both DLL and Web based. Podcasting and video playback plug-ins are already available." Update: 05/11 13:06 GMT by T : ian c rogers, formerly of Nullsoft, just led the build of the media player, and writes with information about "the the plugin architecture it supports as well as some of the 20 plugins that are already available for it.
I've posted my thoughts on why someone should or shouldn't use the Yahoo! Music Engine on my blog."
Oh good, yet another (Score:3, Insightful)
wow technology (Score:4, Insightful)
Call me crazy, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Bandwagon, much? (Score:4, Insightful)
The power music consumers will use allofmp3.
What segment are Yahoo selling to exactly, the confused?
Threat to iTunes? No way (Score:4, Insightful)
Thanks, but no thanks (Score:4, Insightful)
All I want is a standard format to purchase music in, that works on every player and that allows me to freaking do with the music I bought what I want.
bankrupt (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, cross platform (Score:1, Insightful)
Maybe I can use this service in Linux, but I'm not permitted to play WMA files in Linux - I know, there are codecs (I have them), but they are reverse engineerd, and AFAIK not legal outside Europe.
Re:Call me crazy, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:wow technology (Score:5, Insightful)
By June 2005, we will have unlimited mp3's for $60 a year.
The only thing different from what's available now is "mp3". If you have a Windows computer and a WMA player, the restrictive DRM still lets you do everything you need to, namely play music. It's nice to be the first guy to say "I can't wait until they crack this," but chances are, nothing will change for you when they crack it.
$60 a year for music is cheap, especially for people like me who don't appreciate the value of building up a music collection yet. If their DRM allows you to do everything you plan to do with the music, then buy it. Novel concept, eh?
If the DRM doesn't allow you to do what you want, buy music from likeminded artists. [magnatune.com]
Won't play on my MP3 players (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, my players won't play WMA, which makes Yahoo's years of development a moot point.
I guess that the millions of 15-35 year olds who paid a premium price for our players aren't Yahoo's target market.
Re:Oh good, yet another (Score:5, Insightful)
It's mainly a subscription based service. It doesn't matter if it's lossy, because you're never converting the music to another format. Ever.
When will "they" realise that this isn't going to cut the mustard?
I'm willing to bet that this does cut the mustard for most people. If you use Windows and have a WMA player, this service seems fine as long as you don't mind all your music self destructing when you stop paying. But honestly, at $5 a month for music, I'd be willing to pay that for quite some time. That's the lowest monthly bill I'd have, and I'd get to access a huge library of music on demand.
Too bad I use Linux and have an iPod shuffle.
Re:bankrupt (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Call me crazy, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
And Apple survives on 5% of the home computer market - why can't Yahoo survive on the 20% of the portable player market?
Re:Oh good, yet another (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:192 KB/s WMA (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop trying to justify your copyright infringement. You don't care about paying anyone, or you'd just buy regular CDs and get your lossless music that way. You really don't understand how to get what you want as a consumer. You stop using the product until they give you what you want. Taking it without permission still perpetuates your reliance on their product.
There are artists who sell lossless, reasonably priced downloads. [magnatune.com] Put your money where your mouth is.
Re:Call me crazy, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
That's quite an interesting way of putting it. I don't think I've ever heard of a format not supporting a player/program/whatever. I would have thought that it's the player that doesn't support the format, but maybe I'm just weird.
If Apple cares about their customers enough, they can release firmware updates to allow iPods to play WMA. (Well, assuming firmware updates are possible with iPods... maybe I've just been spoiled by my Neuros.)
On a side note, one of my roommates wants to buy an iPod soon. Knowing that he doesn't have a lot of money to spare, I started telling him about other mp3 players that would be a better deal for him. His response was, "Yeah, but I want to use iTunes."
How come we bash Microsoft's monopolizing tactics but praise Apple for doing pretty much the same thing with iPods and iTMS?
Re:paying to not own the music (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Call me crazy, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Without owning an iPod or other digital music player, I can only speculate.
I would assume it's for ease of use. iTunes synchs up with iPods, and allows for quick playlist changes and updates as well.
I don't know if other digital music players do this, or if they plan to. But I do know, from seeing my friend's synch up their iPods, that the ease of use for moving songs from PC/Mac to the iPod is a definite plus for people. No finding the folder and manually dragging the files, just choose the files you want, and they head on over to the iPod. If the other players don't have this ease of use, well, then Average Joe Users might not like them.
Re:Call me crazy, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
Because Microsoft cares about control and winning at all costs, whereas Apple cares about making a good product.
Re:Call me crazy, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
The *potential* market for Apple computers is anyone looking for a computer (100%), and they get 5% of them. The potential market for Yahoo is 20%, and they will then get some fraction of that.
Of course, discussing market share figures like this assumes that only people with portable music players buy music online.
Re:Call me crazy, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yahoo will not be allowed to sell mainstream music without DRM. They cannot use DRM on the IPod. Therefore they cannot sell mainstream music for the IPod.
It's not complicated.
Re:Thanks, but no thanks (Score:4, Insightful)
The biggest advantage of Apple's FairPlay over Microsoft's DRM is that FairPlay establishes one set of rules for all items purchased via ITMS. With WMA, the rules are variable. You're never exactly sure what you're getting. FairPlay is a better deal for customers, and a more understandable one.
Look at it another way. Hilary Rosen is advocating the death of ITMS and the iPod and their replacement with WMA-based services. What does that tell you about the two systems?
Re:192 KB/s WMA (Score:2, Insightful)
So simple (Score:1, Insightful)
If you own something you hate and despise, but try as you might you can't find a reasonable alternative, that feels very wrong.
This is perfectly normal. Even ordinary people dislike Windows, but there isn't much choice a lot of the time. People adore their iPods.
Now, if we ever get to a point where people don't like their iPods and they are unhappy they can't move their music, then people will start complaining. This is probably inevitable, and will be messy.
Until then, people are happy. They are listening to their music. Happy people don't complain much. It's really that simple. So... fucking... simple. Dude, come on. How is that not obvious?
Re:I thought MP3 *is* supported (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Won't play on my MP3 players (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Call me crazy, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
sigh
CJC
Re:No thanks. I don't want to lease my music. (Score:3, Insightful)
I keep all my music on my computer as fairly high quality MP3s, but nearly all of the new music I acquire now comes from CDs, even though I have used iTunes in the past. Using eBay or Amazon Marketplace it sometimes half as much, and the CD becomes a backup as soon as I rip it. If I lose the file, I have no trouble ripping it again, and I always have a high quality copy of the album stored away.
It just seems like CDs are still win-win, whereas the only advantage online music stores have is that you get the music instantly.
Re:Who funds these things? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd have to disagree with that, really. If a subscription service dies, you just switch to another one. You haven't lost anything because you never bought anything in the first place. The DRM'd files on the harddrive are just a temporary cache, not a "collection" to worry about backing up. This assumes, of course, that you don't find yourself forced to buy proprietary hardware for each individual service, in which case you'd lose that investment.
(Whether subscription based services are really a good deal or not is another matter entirely that varies significantly from person to person.)
Something I don't get (Score:4, Insightful)
But is this a currently profitable market, or are they gambling on it being so in the future?
The last financial briefing of Apple Computer stated that they had achieved "about break even" for the quarter.
Break even? When iTunes is the currently the biggest thing around. Why even bother. Presumably for Apple, it's to provide a service to encourage more iPod sales with an easy way to fill them with music. But are the other services gambling on a future where many more people are buying downloads?
What if it's another dotcom, where everyone is jumping into the game, but the profits just don't eventuate...?
Re:Call me crazy, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Won't play on my MP3 players (Score:5, Insightful)
I would never subscribe to any sort of music download service unless I was able to either directly download MP3, or convert whatever it was *to* MP3 (real MP3, not WMA-pretending-to-be-MP3)
Zero chance (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:bankrupt (Score:3, Insightful)
Subscription models *do not* work.
Big deal (so far) (Score:4, Insightful)
So, in balance, it's a "nothing to see here, move along", but with the Yahoo brand name associated with it. No one WMA music store has been able to make a big splash so far, because of two things: the iPod rules the market at every price point, and thus far the market really is not terribly interested in subscription-based music - despite the endless efforts of the WMA-based companies and the music industry to convince us otherwise.
In the unlikely event that subscriptions start taking off, Apple'll just add it to iTMS, anyways. Short of a sudden overnight shift in consumer tastes, this Yahoo store will just be fighting for their piece of the 20% of the market that simply refuses to associate with anything Apple.
Re:Call me crazy, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple are a business too. A more balanced statement might go like this:
Because Microsoft cares about control and winning at all costs, whereas Apple also cares about making a good product.
Re:Call me crazy, but... (Score:1, Insightful)
There are some interesting surveys around that indicate that a lot of consumers identify their Creative, Rio, and Dell players as "iPods" -- which account for a lot of the claims that the "iPod" accounts for such an unrealistically large segment of the market :)
Re:Oh good, yet another (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Thanks, but no thanks (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you comparing like for like? Or is this a new CD vs 2 'bargain' DVDs? e.g. here in the UK, play.com sells most CDs around the £8 to £11 mark, whereas DVDs mostly range from £7 to £15. Maybe it's different where you are.
You need to listen to better artists :-). Besides, one man's "filler" is another woman's "awesome album track", in my experience.
But isn't it likely (or even inevitable?) that digital audio files will suffer from the same thing? i.e. be mastered from the same digital source, once it's been compressed?
Personally, I still buy CDs. DRM is just too much of a pain in the neck. With non-DRM'd music I can play it on any PC I'm using, and not have to give a toss whether it's got iTunes and my account set up, etc. The way iTunes is designed, in order to play a music track on a PC, you have to install Quicktime on the PC as well - not everyone wants Quicktime on their PC to be honest. And so on.
Plus Apple's delightful policy of "if your hard disk dies, you're free to buy all the music again!" Gee, thanks.
The only reason I'd buy a DRM'd song is if I only wanted the song and not an album. But I'd only do that as long as, e.g. hymn was still working.
CDs are not much of a hassle - I don't buy them often enough that ripping them is a chore. Ripping all my CDs initially took ages, but now my PC can rip a CD ludicrously quickly, and with always-on internet it gets the track names etc without me having to mess about getting on the net. There's just not enough of a downside to CDs for me to stop using them at the moment.
Plus, all CDs come with this great free robust silver backup disc, so I don't have to worry about that, either :)
Just out of curiosity..... (Score:1, Insightful)
I think its a no win situation for Microsoft in a niche market that more receptive of any solution so long as it's not Microsoft.
Re:Oh good, yet another (Score:5, Insightful)
"They" will allow non-DRM formats when people stop sharing them with a few million of their closest friends. That's pretty much the only reason that Joe User would want a non-DRM solution. And yahoo would find it quite difficult to make people delete all of their music after unsubscribing from their service using the "honor system" alone.
It isn't like their going to give in and let everyone have the music for free.
Re:Oh good, yet another (Score:5, Insightful)
Mine (an iHP-120) came with a CD, but I've never even unwrapped it. The player presents itself as a mass storage device and Just Works.
Re:Call me crazy, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yahoo seems to offer a very good alternative to the other subscription services (low price, high bitrate, modularity in the system although I don't know yet about the size and quality of the catalog) and will likely also thrive in their market - subscription services. What remains to be seen is if subscription services are actually widely used and if they generate enough money to make it worthwhile for the vendor and the labels.
Re:Call me crazy, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
It does support the iPod as lond as you use non DRMed MP3s or even AACs. See this screenshot [fistfulayen.com].
It's only buying DRM tracks from a music store that "locks" you in to a player. If you buy your CDs online and rip them yourself you probably end up saving money and don't have any DRM issues.
Re:Call me crazy, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oh good, yet another (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, the consumer does care. I've talked to plenty of people that have a story that goes like this:
I've never actually had to deal with DRM'd music myself, but I'm under the impression that more than one computer can be authorized for some tracks. Either way, this is another step that the user doesn't understand ("why can't I just copy my files over the wireless network the nice ISP set up for us?"). So while they lose business from the "know what we're doing" techies like we have so much of on slashdot, they're also losing business from the middle-class family that doesn't know much about computers but has plenty of disposable income and several computers in the house. I don't know about Microsoft's DRM but I suspect it isn't simpler than Apple's.
In conclusion, the user does care about DRM, they just don't know what it is, or why it is there. The see the symptoms and that is a major turn off because they don't really know what is causing it. On the other hand, I would guess that you're probably right about lossy vs lossless; they don't care.
Re:Call me crazy, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft cares about winning and their strategy is control, whereas Apple also cares about winning but their strategy is making a good product.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Yahoo! is on to something here (Score:4, Insightful)
Yahoo! has combined several elements that make this subscription service worth the price of two cups of Coffee at Starbucks:
- Low price that undercuts competition by 50% +
- $0.79 song burn ability.
- Build your own/120 pre-built radio stations that stream commercial free music to your desktop (look out XM/Sirus?)
- plugins for Instant Messenger and other applications that allow you to recommend songs to friends
- Decent 1M song catalog to choose from (though 33% smaller than Apple's 1.5M - too bad)
Yahoo! obviously looked at the landscape and said "we can't be on the iPod and we have to use WMA DRM, so how can we offer something competetive based on what exists today?"
Now, I don't think Yahoo! is going to get the volumes to make this service profitable since $0.99 downloads don't leave much margin for, well, margin. But the service just might put pressure on Apple to release their own subscription service. And that would be a good thing.
Re:Potential vs Actual (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:paying to not own the music (Score:1, Insightful)
Don't believe me? See what happens when you crash your hard drive.
Anyway, if you want the same rights as iTunes, Yahoo has that too (at $0.79/song).
To me, this is the best of both worlds; you can sample/download as many songs as you want for $5/month and if you find something you really like, you can buy that for $0.79 so that you can burn it on CD. AND you can download it to the latest WMA players.
Isn't choice supposed to be a good thing?
Apple Is No Microsoft (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why worry about DRM? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Call me crazy, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
I can only talk for myself, but as I see it Apple is innovates, and delivers a good product, a product they deservs to have some protection for.
Microsoft on the other hand replicates, and try to figure out a way to block everyone else out.
Also Apples usage of Mpeg4/H.264, rendezvous(spelling..), bonjour, MP3/AAC, are open/available on a broader market (mp3 and mpeg4 aren't as "open" as I would liked them to be thought). Microsoft on the other side most do it their way, I don't remember what network stuff they made in some weird way earlier, they uses WMA and WMV, if they made something like rendezvous it wouldn't be an open format and so on.
Also Apple probably gives some kind of feedback/money/resources/code/.. to the FreeBSD people, althought I don't know, I guess they return code to KHTML and so on.
Althought I like free things, I can't say I myself would have liked to work for free and get nothing, so I do understand some coders/designers/.. want money for their products and work. So just because Apple tries to make a profit doesn't mean they are evil. (They should be more helpful regarding mac clones and other oses than macos support on their macs thought. On that point they aren't good at all. Being able to run MorphOS/AmigaOS on the mac would be cool =))
You have a CHOICE PEOPLE!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
There are 3 primary (legal) ways to get your music now.
1. Buy a CD
Pro: This is the most flexible option. You can burn as many times as you want, get the highest quality sound, nice storage format (CD's are nice and thin and you can fit thousands on a bookshelf), etc.
Con: This is also the most expensive method, especially when you count all the bad tracks on a typical album.
2. Buy a permanent download license for a digital track
Pro: You can burn to a CD (which you can turn into MP3). Your license does not go away as long as your PC does not go away. Download to select portable devices.
Con: Not as high fidelity as CD. Per song price is not better than a CD, if you lose your license somehow, it is good as dead.
3. Get a subscriptioni license for a digital track
Pro: Cheapest by FAR (per song)! Can download to select WMA portable devices.
Con: Not as high fidelity as CD. Your license goes away if you end your service.
Just choose whatever fits you best. What is wrong with that?
Re:Oh good, yet another (Score:2, Insightful)
Most of the prevalent DRM schemes are really intended for downloading media via the Internet onto a computer, so there is an implicit assumption of having a computer intermediary capable of enforcing (certain) DRM restrictions.
If you want to listen to music on the go without getting a computer involved, the music companies probably want you to buy a CD!
Re:Oh good, yet another (Score:5, Insightful)
The current market research doesn't necessarily agree. [bbc.co.uk]
Oh, sure, you could argue "only" 22 million Americans is not that big of a number, percentage-wise, but you have to realize that those 22 million Americans also have friends and family members, and once you do, you'll also realize that it's highly unlikely anybody in this country has not heard of the iPod.
It's also more remarkable that this survey did not even include teenagers. So the numbers are likely considerably higher than even that already impressive number.
The mp3 player market is not in its infancy. This is a fallacy that a lot of Apple's competitors seem to like to tell themselves to help them sleep at night. It's a young market, yes, but it is already pretty saturated. It's very hard to get 22 million adult Americans to buy anything collectively, let alone something that was considered a luxury product for ubergeeks just a couple of years ago.
Nokia and others are betting the other way; that the market for standalone digital audio players is going to start to level out soon, and the remaining market (primarily comprised of those who don't need the capacity or battery life of the higher-end players) will turn to cell phones for their music. Obviously, this will still lock out services like Yahoo or Napster.
That's not to say these companies can't make money selling music to the small market they have. But they will never be a serious threat to Apple and the iPod. Sorry, but that's just the reality. Apple is entrenched in a market that has become saturated faster than any I can ever remember.
Re:Call me crazy, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Judging by the "iTunes-wma.icns" icon sitting right out in the open in the iTunes
Same for the also present "iTunes-ogg.icns", for that matter...
How come we bash Microsoft's monopolizing tactics but praise Apple for doing pretty much the same thing with iPods and iTMS?
For it to be 'pretty much the same thing', Apple would have to be bullying record labels into not providing their catalogues to competitive music services. As far as I know, nothing along those lines is even hinted at.
But merely tying Apple's service offering to Apple's hardware offering, while the actual product (ie music) is completely fungible and completely available to anyone who cares to put together a competitive service/hardware package
Re:You have a CHOICE PEOPLE!!! (Score:1, Insightful)
#2: My music library completely dies if I buy a new computer. No thanks.
#3: My music library completely dies if I stop paying ransom. No thanks.
Why can't I get unrestricted mp3 format music that I can move to and from any device I wish? As you would say, What is wrong with that?
Re:DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Call me crazy, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
WOW, you know, they don't get statistics for sales of players by doing an informal survey. You live in a fascinating little world if you think that way.
There are hard numbers as to how many devices are shipped, just as there are in computers, and IDG [idg.com] tracks those hard numbers and reports them.
Re:Oh good, yet another (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Oh good, yet another (Score:3, Insightful)
Absolutely. However, that argument is completely worthless, since there are no CDs involved in this. You are making a point to an argument that was not raised.
> When you stop paying for your cable subscription, can no longer watch cable TV.
When I cancel my subscription, Caomcast doesn't come and erase all my fucking video tapes!
It only "makes sense" to you because you chose that point to argue. If you chose the other side your arguments would probably still make sense. It doesn't mean they are RIGHT.
Everyone does that. Ipod locks out *** (Score:5, Insightful)
The LOCK-IN is that an ipod supports only ONE music service (that offers RIAA files of course).
Because Microsoft is willing to license their DRM (which, ONCE AGAIN is REQUIRED in some form to sell RIAA files -- which is what the mass market wants) while Apple is NOT willing to license their DRM.
If you have an Ipod, you can buy RIAA music from exactly ONE online vendor. Apple.
On the other hand, if you have ANY one of the MANY brands of WMA players, you can buy RIAA music from MULTIPLE online vendors because, once again Microsoft, the big evil corportation, are willing to license their DRM.
Yes, it flies in the face of reason that Apple, who "doesn't make money off itunes, only off ipods" would NOT want to expand their ipod customer base by allowing music from other servicees to play on their portable. Well, it does if you really believe that Apple doesn't view itunes as a cashpot (either currently or in the future).
Please! Love your ipod if you want, but face reality just a LITTLE bit.
Re:Thanks, but no thanks (Score:3, Insightful)
Spot the odd one out:
Re:paying to not own the music (Score:3, Insightful)
When Yahoo says they charge an introductory price of $5 per month the first year, that means they're going to charge you more after that. And since they're using MS Janus technology, if you don't renew your subscription for next year the software will delete all the songs you've acquired for the first year.
Re:Oh good, yet another (Score:2, Insightful)
Now, I know this was likely the labels decision and everything, but the sharing of DMB music, or Phish music, or Widespread Panic, or Grateful Dead, or any other jam band that built a reputation off of word of mouth and tape trading hasn't ever really cut into their selling potential...if anything has cut into DMBs sales, it has been the degradation of the music since they nixed the original Lillywhite Sessions. But hey, doing that helped me save a lot of money, given that I no longer felt the compulsion to buy more DMB albums.
Re:Oh good, yet another (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't forget Metallica, the biggest backers of bootleg tapes in their early years turned largest opponent of Napster.
And remember: Napster Bad! [campchaos.com]
Re:Oh good, yet another (Score:3, Insightful)
Have a new music track? Drop your iPod into the dock (or insert the cable) and it's in. Shuffled around some playlists? Already done on your iPod. Edited a SmartList to only include tracks imported between August 2002 and January 2004 beginning with the letter "I" and under two minutes long? Same deal. Bought some CDs? Insert into computer, rip, and plug in iPod. Killed that track that reminds you of the car accident you were in because you talked to your ex-gf while cruising through a red light? Auto deleted from the iPod.
The iPod is meant to be iTunes carried around. Other companies take it the exact opposite approach: that's the problem with other players - they are portables with software hacked on top of them (or lack thereof, as in drag and drop files). Showing up as a portable drive is convenient for various file operations such as backups and file transfers (and yes, the iPod does this). It is not nearly a good enough solution for anyone who has a large collection of music to manage and doesn't want to deal with actually organizing it. That's what computers and software are good at - let them do it.
they're not the same thing ... (Score:3, Insightful)
The same point you made comes up every time there's an article about subscription services. I'm not sure how else to say it: you are paying to be able to listen to any of tens of thousands of albums, instantly, from your computer. If that's not attractive to you, fair enough, but stop criticizing it for failing to be something it's not trying to be.
Re:Won't play on my MP3 players (Score:2, Insightful)
You think it's overrated. I don't care how it's rated: It's the best tool for the job.
"too restricted"
I think the restrictions are vastly overblown by haters. You might happen to not like Apple's plan, and you're free to not use it. Nobody's coming to your house with a gun.
"I'm predicting its popularity will decline"
Can't get much higher, so I think you're making a safe guess.
"they can listen to virtually the entire catalogs of their favorite artists for a whole year"
And have it vanish in a puff of smoke when the seller decides [vader] I am altering the deal [/vader]. Don't think it'll happen? You're more optimistic than I am. I'm pretty sure it happened to me with Netflix: I was a prolific user, and all of a sudden, I couldn't get any movies. 50 movies in my queue, all on "delayed availability". Maybe I'm paranoid, maybe they gamed me. I certainly stopped doing business with them.
History tells me one thing: Anybody who gets into bed with Microsoft winds up getting fucked. And not in a good way.
"I wasn't putting you down."
By implying I'm an Apple zealot who would buy white poop. You'll forgive me for misinterpreting your intentions.
"Only time will tell if I'm right about Apple's decline"
Time has certainly told about Apple's runaway, breakout success, so yeah, it'll tell about Apple's decline too.
"but pointing out my failings as a consumer won't change anything."
Only to illustrate that people who believe the hype, rather than their own judgement, often make poor choices. This is an important realization.
Re:Who funds these things? (Score:3, Insightful)
"I paid money every month for my electricity, then it all went away
"I paid money every month for my water, then it all went away
"I paid money every month for my cell phone, then it all went away
You aren't paying money every month to buy music, any more than you're paying money every month to buy a cell tower. What you are paying for is the ability to listen to any of the tens of thousands of albums they own, instantly, from your computer. This is not a service that is free to provide, it's not a service that can be replaced by buying CDs, and it's not a service that they don't deserve to make a profit on.
If it's not a service you find useful, fine, but stop treating it like an alternative to buying CDs. It fills a totally different niche, and does it well at a fair price. I'd fund that.
Re:Bandwagon, much? (Score:2, Insightful)
There is no judgement on the quality of th music. There is no imagining that the song is going to be entertaining any longer than it takes to show the other students that you have the hot new song. Who cares if the lease will expire, there will be a new song next week.
So, as long as a kid can get a player for $99, he or she will find the time to plug it into the front USB port at school, and get the requisite dose of music. And for $5 a month, you buy acceptance.
Re:DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree, however I feel it necessary to point out that they're not exactly advertising those terms real loudly, are they? I didn't notice the fine print on Napster ToGo's commercials that said "unsubscribing makes your portable player delete all the music you put on it by itself" or anything. I think that it's not widely understood, by the consumer, that the new "Plays For Sure" players will auto-expire your subscription music after some amount of time. It's not an obvious thing to expect to happen.
Regarding copying for your friends.. that is not 'fair use'.
I would argue otherwise, but even if it's not fair use, I would suggest that the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 (section 1008) makes non-commercial use like this immune to civil actions alleging infringement of copyright. So while it may or may not be Fair Use, it's also not illegal to do.
If a service doesn't let you (easily) copy music, that may be a draw back of the service, but it is not the human rights violation that some make it out to be. It's a condition of the music companies license to the service.
True, and I never said otherwise.
The whole bit about MS deleting all your music? Please. Let's talk about reality. MS certified hardware? Hilarious. Why do you kooks always assume that 'Trusted Computing' is a given? Furthermore, why do you think that MS will deliberately piss off all of its customers?
What? You think I'm making this shit up? It's made very clear in the Windows Media 10 SDKs. it's what the whole frickin' Janus DRM is about. It happens [i]right now[/i] if you use Napster ToGo or this new Yahoo Music Service in combination with a "Plays For Sure" player device. It was [i]expressly designed[/i] to do exactly that. This isn't paranoia, it's an honest statement of the facts of the matter.
These services only work on MS Certified hardware. The "Plays For Sure" logo is the certification program Microsoft runs to certify any given player. Look it up! They're not even trying to hide this stuff. They make it's a *selling point* of the Janus DRM for crying out loud.
Choice vs. Ease of use vs. Confusion (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Confusion. There is a problem with the various Windows WMA music stores, a big problem: There are too many of them. Napster, Yahoo, MSN, Coke, Wallmart etc. Yahoo's store looks like the cheapest/month, at the moment, but I'm pretty sure that some other store will somehow compete pretty soon. The problem is that these stores are not compatible with one another (obviously) and that there is no vast difference between them. While they all offer subscription, only a few offer the ability to download and buy single tracks. This cannot be stated enough. All of these stores are fighting amongst one another for a small slice of the market. They all claim to be "The iPod/iTunes alternative", but the reality is that they fight amongst one another for the paying twice for the same song. Once to listen to it on subscription, and twice to "own" it forever.
3. Features vs. Ease of use. All of these stores, and especially this Yahoo one, offer loads of features. Look at this idiot geek wetting himself about features like skins and plug-ins. He's basically saying that WinAmp is now part of an online store. The thing is that one of the reasons that the iPod and iTunes is so popular is that it is very very simple. It offers a basic, easy to understand business model. Basically, it is, you pay for a song and you can play and do with it what you want afterwards, basta.
The iPod doesn't have built in TV, FM, or a razor. It just plays music. It's also simple.
Most people just want to listen to their music that they bought. They are not interested in skins for the player, or OGG format or having to fork out next month's payment.
4. All of Apple's competitors complain about the iPod and iTunes not being "open". What they are essentially complaining about is that they don't have a slice of the pie. If they were in Apple's position, they wouldn't open their stuff to Apple either.