“Apple is watching its iTunes Radio streaming service flounder because it doesn’t understand the most fundamental truth about streaming music customers,” Jason Notte writes for TheStreet. “We’re not listening to streaming music services so we can find the next song to buy. We’re listening and subscribing to them so we don’t have to buy songs anymore.”
“This isn’t a Pandora issue or a digital radio issue: It’s a straight subscription streaming issue,” Notte writes. “It’s been a long time since the older segments of the music marketplace got their first iPods. It’s been more than a decade since iTunes started doling out downloads and just about as long since crafting playlists was something anyone but the most patient of party hosts or wedding planners took joy in doing. A device or iTunes library stocked with thousands of songs isn’t a point of pride anymore: It’s an onerous chore.”
“‘The a-la-carte consumption model is 11 years old and at this point the decline in the U.S. download sales seems unstoppable; it doesn’t seem like the store is refreshable,’ said one record label about the once-indispensable iTunes. And that’s how Apple, of the dancing iPod silhouettes and indie-rock jingles, got caught sleeping after the aughts ended,” Notte writes. “As great a force as Apple was in driving the last great music format change away from CDs and to lower-quality digital files, it now joins the labels in being dragged toward the subscription streaming future.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple might also try high-res track sales along with exploring subscription music and improving iTunes Radio.