“On the surface, the To Go model looks like a great replacement for Napster’s previous subscription service. In the past, customers had to pay a monthly subscription fee that allowed them to rent as much music as they liked. Users then had to pay extra to download permanent versions of songs that could be transferred to a device or CD. Now, $14.95 per month lets you download as much music as you like to your computer and/or device,” Ashlee Vance writes for The Register. “The big detractor, however, is that you still don’t own the music. You rent it. Stop paying the Napster tax man, and all your music disappears.”
“This forces you to make a choice between quantity and permanence. Pay Napster every month and gain access to an almost limitless supply of music or buy select CDs, as you have in the past, and own them for years,” Vance writes. “From where we sit, the math doesn’t break down terribly well in Napster’s favor.”
Vance looks at a number of hypothetical customers and finds Napster To Go doesn’t really work very well for any situation.
Vance continues, “Even Napster seems to realize the vacuous nature of the deal. ‘A fully-integrated marketing program will support the release of Napster To Go, led by a currently-under-wraps February 6, 2005 Super Bowl television advertisement,’ it says in a press release. ‘This will be complemented by the new ‘Works with Napster To Go’ logo program that enables consumers to easily identify Napster To Go compatible MP3 players at retail.'”
“What is this marketing program integrated into? Is it possible to have a partially-integrated marketing program? Are we to be excited by logos now? When the bullshit generator goes this far into overdrive, you know there are problems,” Vance writes. “Napster plans to spend $30m to promote this new service. That’s a cute total if you consider that Apple made close to $14m a day last quarter in iPod sales, shipping 4.6m devices. The only money to be had in this market is in the hardware, and Apple has it all locked up. Here’s hoping consumers will see the light and Napster To Go will go away.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Ditto.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Napster CEO: We’re ‘the biggest brand in digital music, much more exciting than Apple’s iTunes’ – February 03, 2005
Napster tries to push music subscription service over pay-for-download iTunes-like model – February 03, 2005
Apple Computer could sell 21 million iPod shuffle units in 2005 – January 19, 2005
Cornell University’s Mac users ‘uniformly unhappy’ with Napster – January 19, 2005
Analyst: Apple’s iTunes Music Store ‘downloads could reach 474 million in calendar 2005’ – December 17, 2004
Study: Apple iTunes Music Store dominates with 70 percent market share, second place Napster holds 11 percent – October 19, 2004
Cornell University wrestles with Napster’s exclusion of Mac and iPod-using students – September 08, 2004
Why are Cornell’s Mac students being forced to pay for useless Napster? – September 07, 2004
Napster schools to Mac-using students: bend over and take it – September 04, 2004
Napster CEO: ‘it would be great’ if Apple iPod supported WMA – March 09, 2004
Napster CEO: Apple iTunes, iPod ‘consumer-unfriendly experiences’ – March 09, 2004
Microsoft tries to push WMA by propping up beleaguered Napster – February 25, 2004
Great article! Everyone should go and read it!!!
Great article. It’s good to see viewpoints like these in mainstream media.
Brought to you by the magic word into, as in “Apple’s going to jam the knife INTO Napster’s back!”
Works with Plays for Sure..?
Plays to go..?
Napster for sure…?
Or just get an iPod.
Me, I’m still interested in a subscription service. Not as a means of purchasing music but as a means of previewing and exploring music. I’d be willing to spend $15 per month to review as much music as I could ever wish for. When I find a new artist I like, I have no interest in downloading the poor quality of ALL compressed music. I’ll go buy the CD thank you. Unfortunately, I want it on my iPod and Mac. Not on my PC or some other music player so I have to hope that Napster is successful enough for Apple to decide to pursue a similar service.
Ok I’ll bite: can someone “do the math” for me a convince me that not owning/must plug in mp3 player every 30 days/15$ is a good deal?
“This will be complemented by the new ‘Works with Napster To Go’ logo program that enables consumers to easily identify Napster To Go compatible MP3 players at retail.”
What is it with the Windows world and logos and stickers? They are obsessed with them like 12 year old girls.
Now they can have complimenting sticker sets with their eMachines PC and their Dell Junkbox!
14.95 X 12 months = “Neal and Bob”
That’s like paying a Hooker and doing what she says.
OH puh-leeez! ANOTHER logo -validating program? “Plays for Sure” and now “Works with Napster-to-Go”. BY the time all of these companies slap their seal of approval on future digital mp3 players, they will have to increase the size of player and the box so that you can read all of the logos.
hahahahaha. This is too funny.
keyword = rest, as in Napster should give it a rest already
Frank,
Here’s the math:
If you are 20 years old, own no music, and are going to live until you are 75, the cost of renting assuming a historic rate of inflation of 3% is $24,411.
If you assume you will buy about 840 CD’s in your life, the cost is around $12,591. (Again allowing for inflation.)
So, you’ll save over $11,800. Plus most people own far less CD’s than 840.
Napster is playing math games. They are saying it costs 10 grand to fill an iPod, but that is misleading. Most people buy albums and already have music. No one fills an iPod with individually bought songs.
Plus, as I just showed you, there is a break even point when renting just becomes more expensive than buying.
Finally, you own your music. You can do with it as you please. (Even Apple’s DRM is notoriously weak. Apple winking to its customers.)
I hope this was helpful.
I particularly liked this phrase:
“Customers do not, as Napster suggests, pay $10,000 to fill their iPods with 10,000 songs just because the capacity is there.”
Why can’t more analysts or experts pick up on this fact.
When the bullshit generator goes this far into overdrive, you know there are problems
Ha. My bullshit generator has burned out but somehow still manages to work pretty well.
When the bullshit generator goes this far into overdrive, you know there are problems
Classic.
effwerd, I see we were on the same page.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” /> But you beat me to the punch.
14 or 15 dollars per month for 12 months ? What’s that like 180 dollars. Every year, and after a few years you’ve got 500 smackers locked up in Napster…then you stop paying for a month…whammo – you got exactly squat for tunes. Only a retard would do this. Seriously, if you get someone to pay for you, maybe. But even then – you have zippo tunes down the road.
Napster = a gimmick to lock up the retards with short sighted logic.
Well….I must admit when I heard the news that I was wondering if Apple had reason to sweat. I suppose not.
But then again…we are talking about the lowest common denominator that will be subscribing…the people who DON’T have iPods.
I would think this would be an ideal option for businesses who pay $100/month for services to pipe music in to their sound systems.
Otherwise..people wanna own their music.
What’s to stop people from figuring out how to get the songs off their player? It can be done with the rock-solid AACs (turning them in to tradeable mp3s) and taking songs off your ipod.
And what happens to all of your rented music if Napster 2.0 goes belly up like Napster (original theif-ware)? Can you say “Screwed For Sure”?
For $0 i can listen to all kinds of random music from all kinds of genres, its called internet radio, and they do the random thing for you. Tehn pay 99¢ for the ones you like.
And as they said in the article, you already have a music collection built that you are adding to. The only people this works for is teen who purchase a new album every week because its new and cool. Except when your out of high school, and your parents arnt paying your bills anymore and move, your music will just dissappear, and you will be left with nothing. I have a nice CD collection i started @ 16, combine that with your spouse’s and look at all the music you could have had.
As Most people who have a large collection do, I probably listen to the older stuff more. And its great going back and rediscovering old music you listened to back then
When you rent or lease a car, you pay to use it until you return it. Then you have no car.
When you rent an apartment, you pay until you move out. There is no benefit after you leave and must find another place to live.
When you rent music, you listen until you quit paying. Then the music is no longer available, unless, in Napster’s crazy world, you choose to pay for it again. Where’s the logic in that? Who wants to pay twice for one item?
I’d rather own my car, own my house, and own my music the first time ’round.
My magic word: “reason” — Hmmmmmm…..
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Definitely a flopper. Even allowing for inflation, if retro cat didn’t allow for the time value of money you can multiply that by 3 to 5, I guess.
The Unofficial Apple Weblog has a cool sticker for the iPod shuffle. Click on the small graphic and print the full-size image on a sticker. I wonder if this will catch on….
Another key point is that when you own music, you are protected from the price jumping up. I’ll be laughing hard at all the poor schlups who rented there music at $15 a month and find that down the road the Napster changes its price to $20 a month, $25 a month, $29.95 a month whatever. — and that the renter has no option but to pony up or lose all their music.. If they switch to a different service (aka MSN Music store) or whatever, they have to go through the hassle of downloading their collection again…
If, like in ITMS, you buy a song for $.99, it is bought for good and that price won’t go up.
PS. Something is really screwd up with the magic word — I had to reload 3 times for it to work. — it is like a tag is not closed properly on an adserver. bad bad bad
I am also waiting for the DRM crack that will render Janus completely ineffective. I wonder what would happen to Napster, MS, bottom line etc if the DRM was cracked and basically all rented songs become 0wn3d. There goes that business model. Then what do they do… disable songs, force people to download new songs (like they would) force people to upgrade their music software, or force people to upgrade their mp3 player — anything that runs the cracked DRM music won’t play post-cracked DRM music…. PlaysforSure????
Not only is renting music a risky move for consumers, it is a risky move for the providers. I would be a bottom dollar that there are going to be a lot of troubles where customers and corporations will be pitted against one another to keep prices down and force upgrade paths. ugly.
Wow, she really spanked Napster.
MDN PLEASE FIX THE MAGIC WORD POP UP PROBLEM (MAWPUP)!!!!
That the “plays for sure” logo come from M$ is really ironic. Do their computers “run for sure”? I think not.
MDN fix the MAWPUP!!! I am on a Mac but this kind of thing happening makes me feel like I am on a Windoze machine.
Jack A – that comment about “runs for sure” was really low.
Okay, I can’t lie – I totally agree. Wish I’d said it first.
No MAWPUPs on iCab if you have it.