“Going against conventional wisdom, I think Apple will soon introduce a subscription-based music and video service. Although music-subscription services have been in the digital music rotation for years now–and with relatively low success–Apple has repeatedly shunned this still intriguing distribution model for its iTunes Music Store. But the digital music space is still young, and as competition from the likes of WMP 11 and Urge heats–or, rather, warms–up, I believe Apple may shock us with its own bulletproof version of an all-you-can eat iTunes club. And consumers will lick it up,” James Kim, Senior editor, CNET Reviews writes. “While subscription services have struggled to capture the hearts and wallets of the masses, the infrastructure and the standards for operating a service are ready to go. While not everybody will warm to the idea of renting songs, the time is now for users to accept the subscription model as one of the many options for consuming music.”
“Imagine a subscription-enabled iTunes 7 with all-you-can-stream access to more than 3 million tracks for $10 month. You’d also be able to compile playlists manually or automatically using a mix of your own songs and the entire iTunes catalog. You could actually fill up a 60GB iPod with the click of a button. You’d still have the option to buy tracks, perhaps for less than 99 cents. As a subscriber, you’d get access to videos and maybe even movies for a few bucks more. Of course, you’d have to get the newest iPod, equipped with an internal subscription clock,” Kim writes. “I can’t believe that in five years, Apple won’t have a subscription service. The company has taken note of the problems on the WMA side, plus it has the advantage of controlling both the hardware and software sides of the subscription equation. The time is now for an easy-to-use, utterly convenient, and cheap subscription service from Apple.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: A subscription service option for iTunes that works for both Mac and Windows PC users plus also works with iPods? Now that sounds like a winner to us. Not for everyone, of course, but it would be a nice option to have. What do you think?
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Apple iTunes music and video store takes first step toward subscription model – March 08, 2006
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It had better not affect podcasts. If it only affects music, that’s fine.
no way. C|Net never gets it right and I don’t think this will be a first for them.
Why not? More options are usually better! I would probably subscribe. Ouch. Goodbye ITMS competitors!!
I’ve always said that they should have a subscription-based video store and a pay-per-download music store. It just makes the most sense because that is what people are used to. For years (before iTunes), you would go to a record store to buy your CD’s and you would go to a video store to RENT your movies.
Seems obvious to me.
My prediction is that Apple will not change it’s policy on music, but it will probably will start charging subscriptions for podcasts.
Nah. Call me old fashioned, but people still like to have ownership over their music. The streaming-and-buying-for-€10-a-month-and-less-than-99c-a-track model just sounds unnecessarily complicated to me.
MW: truth, as in ‘ain’t that the…’
If I had a subscription with the option to purchase, I’d likely buy more. I’m always looking for new music, but I hate buying an album and finding out its crap. With a subscription service, you could have a Try-buy which would be great!
If Apple moves to a subscription – fine – if they leave the ability to buy songs as it is now as an option – so we can choose which option best meets or buying habits. Early on when I was first buying lots of songs a subscription would have made sense for me. Now, however, I only buy a song every so often – maybe one every two months or so. If I have to buy a subscription for that – no thanks! If it were up to me – I would leave it as is. Not everyone who enjoys iTunes is buying tons of songs every week or month.
I rent my house.
It sucks.
MDN Magic Word: ‘Expected’, as in NOT.
I think it’s possible, but you won’t need a new iPod for it, probably just a firmware update (for 3G and up).
I despise all subscription services.
http://www.stenar.org/
i still believe in *owning* my music… but options are always good i suppose. but rest assured subscription services will never get my dollar. simple as that.
frankly, if anything, what i would much much rather see is the option to pay a few cents more for 320 kbps aac or lossless! WITH liner notes and lyrics included for every song, thank you very much. the closer the digital product can approximate the physical, the more likely i am to spend a greater percentage of my music dollar at itms versus amazon, or any number of overseas vendors, online and offline. (my current habits). paying for overseas shipping is a bitch! but please…i need a worthy alternative. and 128 kbps is only acceptable (for me) for the most casual of purchases.
MW: “music” (believe it or not)
As in “Lot’s of ways to access music.”
i wanna own my music, so if i lose a job, i can listen to depressing sad songs, not silence because i cant keep up payments, music renting is bad, the average person doesnt even buy that much music, so it would be cheaper for them to just by the 1-5 albums they get a year.
why pay $10 a month when you could download all you want for free!? Downloading music illegally is just too easy.
iTunes may be forced into a subscription option, but by a force outside of Redmond and the music labels.
The true pressure of adoption comes from Hollywood.
The movie industry is in poor shape, but no where near where the music labels were a few years ago. Technically speaking, online pirating of movies is increasing, but movie file size + lack of bandwidth + waste-o-time = slow movie pirating rates.
Hollywood will be content to spin out down load services through a host of companies and slowly grow it’s online presence, avoiding partnering with Apple, putting pressure on Apple to play their game.
Counter to this direction is Steve Jobs. Steve has arm-twisting abilities like no other at Disney, and this may be the key to flushing out Hollywood.
Disney will deliver their movies through various online services, but Steve will take sure that Disney movie content is delivered the way Steve desires on iTunes.
If Disney titles sell/rent at a rapid pace on iTunes (quite likely), one by one the movie houses will cave to Steve Jobs iTunes distribution model.
From a practical view, I would say the former model of Hollywood getting there way is most likely. But track record-wise I would not bet against Jobs being the eventual victor.
Meanwhile, Bill Gates will continue to talk about the time MS has in entering the market, and how great they will be when they do – along with waxing about how much OS and Office market share they have…
I will always buy but this would stuff that urgy thing. Apple please let us have some vid content in the UK . . . Michael Jackson has been in the top five for ever.
Man, if Apple introduced a subscription service to go along with its pay-per-song model, the competition wouldn’t stand a chance. I would even wager that the subscription model would actually become successful if Apple introduced it. There would be so much blood on the click wheel of the iPod it wouldn’t even be funny.
As a recording artist with songs for sale on all major services, I can assure that subscription models stink.
I personally end up getting a fraction of a penny for each of my songs that someone “rents.”
I prefer not to “rent” my music collection…how counter-intuitive
I don’t picture Apple doing this, but you never know. Maybe Steve sees it as a viable alternative. I would prefer that they keep the option open to buy songs, since I prefer to own my music.
I’d be thrilled to have both a subscription option and a permanent purchase option, provided it doesn’t screw up anything iTunes already offers. There’s music that’s worth $10 an album, and there’s music that’s worth a couple dollars to rent for a month.
And if iTunes were to offer a subscription service, it would pretty much blow away the other music stores’ argument that it’s sooooooo expensive to fill up an iPod. (It isn’t, for those of us with 20-year-old CD collections numbering over a thousand discs, but somehow they neglect to mention that.)
I’d prefer subscription for video and tv as opposed to buying i’m not that type that buys season series on dvd and stuff like that. i usually rent my movies too. don’t usually watch a movie over and over. but my music, i certainly like to own that, plus music is way cheaper than video. if itunes sells movies for even $9.99 each, i don’t think i’d buy. i’ll still go to my local kick@ss video store and rent it for $3.50 if i only plan to watch it once. my 2¢ at least.
i think rob glaser just barfed in his mouth a little bit.
I think it makes sense as a business plan. Even if only 5% of users decide to subscribe, it’s a nice revenue stream for Apple. Apple has enough marketshare to dominate subscription services and it gives Apple one less competitive weakness. Also, because Apple dominates, when any other subscription service fails, people are most likely to move to the most reliable alternative. It was sensible for Apple to wait, but now that they have a big enough market, subscriptions aren’t a bad idea.