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Un-American INDEED!

We predict Napster to meet its doom possibly in the first quarter of 06. The numbers are not good.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I won't rent music! Sure you get to choose from the whole library but... The minute you stop paying your monthly subscription and stop checking in with Napster or whoever, your music suddenly won't play anymore. Why should I pay over an over again for music I can buy once and play forever. Also if you want to burn those tracks to a CD you need to pay again! Really rediculous to pay twice or more for something you could have paid once for and still be able to burn or transfer to your music player.

John, Wire Tap, Audio Hijack. It's easy.

Ive got it, what Apple should do is allow users to "subscribe" to 5,000 songs per month. Why 5K? Well, you probably couldnt listen to more than 5K individual tracks per month anyway. They charge 10, 12 or 14 bucks for this service but what they do is instead of taking the 14$ and running, they allow you to use that money as a credit toward 10,12 or 14 songs per month that you purchase, just as you do now. You have to buy them by the end of the month or it rolls over (like emusic.com). That way Apple gets a guaranteed 10-15 bucks per month from each user in sales, but allows people to try out gobs of new music in the process.

This would all but kill every other service out there.

MDN MW "entire", as in it would take me almost 2 months of constant listening to hear my entire iTunes Library.

i joined Columbia House some 12 years ago and "bought" several CD's on their 'Buy (blank) amount of CD's and get (blank) amount for free!" deals. as soon as i fulfilled the initial subscription minimum requirements, i quit then signed up again when they sent me a 'beg letter' asking me to join again weeks later. IF Columbia House worked like those subscription services, my copy of "Kind Of Blue" would have ceased working and gone up in smoke several years ago!
IMHO... subscriptions services suck. owning is much better.

"Really rediculous"

Let's get it right--ridiculous!

Is Napster still "locking out" Mac users?

Anyway, Apple will eventually add subscription and satellite radio to iPods/iTunes combo. Then when ihear something ilike, ican just buy it.

When Windows get's a universal spell checker, about 6 years from now, all of those spelling mistakes will just go away.

I kind of like hammer's idea. Only problem for me is that I don't have time to sample much music, so it would be a waste on me. I'll just have to live buying the occasional song and missing out on all the browsing.

Read the full article, it's full of common sense
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no thanks, I'd prefer to stick with the snippet here.. the one that underscores the american fallacy of ownership, and how the supremacy of capitalism has something to do with subscribing to digital music.. like.. paid radio, etc.

The 'Ownership' Society, hrmm? What's wrong with National Health Care.. I think the Ownership Society means you OWN your pills that YOU paid for...

So the rich stay healthy and the poor slobs die off.. sounds like a plan Dubya

Here are the facts:

Napster's revenues increased 188% but their loses increased 270% in the same time period. Clearly, the subscriptions brought in more revenue, but the costs of running the service and the marketing necessary to bring in those subscribers means the company is losing money at a faster rate than it is able to bring in.

At some point soon, Napster will bring in all the subscribers it possibly can and that's when this house of cards will come crashing down.

I posted before that one thing analysts and investors are not factoring in the renting model is that the cost of running the service goes up geometrically as you bring in more users and those users begin to use the service more. You have to pay for essentially unlimited bandwidth to be able to guarantee an all-you-can-eat model because after an initial rush in subscriptions, you are only left with hardcore users who end up using the service to an extent that your $15/month fee cannot cover. Everyone else concludes that they don't use the service enough to justify continuing to pay the monthly tax.

Now we see that, sure, revenues are growing, but Napster is losing even more money per dollar made than ever before. I'd give Napster about a year at this rate.

$15 bucks a month = $180/yr. Over 20 years, that's $3,600. At $12 per CD, that's 300 CD's over 20 years. That is NOT a lot of music, when one can have access to millions of songs for the same amount of dosh. Buying is a suckers game. In the grand scheme of things, we don't own anything.....we just use it while we are alive on this planet for a little while.

Jobs has pushed the buying thing because Job's always pushes any idea that supports what he has to sell now. Just like Job's comments surrounding video iPods....something like "people don't want to watch video on a small portable device". Just wait, as soon as Apple has a small portable video device, he'll change his tune.

$20 bucks says that Apple will offer a music subscription service over the next couple of years.

The Mel (Singapore)

Question:

If Napster goes under, what happens to your music? Hmmmm. This subscription service is surely a risky investment.

Even though most people want to own their songs (including me), clearly there are SOME who want to rent. What is the point of Apple shutting itself out of the subscription market? Don't get it--it's not either/or.

"What kind of message would this send to our children? Renting music would be a crushing blow to our national psyche. It would be, dear friends, un-American"

That's it, I'm never buying another tune in my life.
Napster, eh? Where do I sign up?

Apple should offer an iTMS Party Mix - you pay, say, $US5 per month (less than Yahoo), choose a genre or a favourite band or two, and Apple 'buys' the random music for your and download it permanently to your Mac. You own it, and get the latest contemporary and unusual hits. Would anyone go for it?

Looks like Napster's not going ove very well:

Not a single University of Rochester student admitted to buying a song via Napster during the Fall 2004 semester. Instead, eight per cent of the students turned to the likes of iTunes and Musicmatch to buy songs they enjoy. That's an ominous sign for a company spending millions to seed the university market with music in the hopes of unseating Apple as the clear leader in online music.


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/09/napster_rochester_survey/