MP3.com Removes "High-Bandwidth" Streams

Posted by Hemos on Monday June 30, 2003 @11:58PM from the what's-the-future dept.

mshiltonj writes "I noticed today that mp3.com no longer offers high-bandwidth streams for its genres or stations, although it looks like artists' playlists and individual songs are available in high bandwidth. mp3.com has lots and lots of free music that was free and legal to listen to online, and a good number of my "music bookmarks" were on mp3.com. I'll live (I've still got my favorite stream), but I don't think it's a good sign. Is streaming music doomed to die, not because of RIAA litigation, but because of expensive bandwidth costs?" I don't think bandwidth will be the determining cost - that's a price that has been falling and will continue to fall. But are things like iTunes store the future, or is it streaming?

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Well, imagine that. by binarytoaster · 2003-07-01 00:06 · Score: 5, Interesting

MP3.com discovered that legal fees and bandwidth costs couldn't be covered by the very very small amount of cash coming in from ads.

Rather than go to a pay model they just decided to drop their higher streams... Maybe they should have had a system where you can pay some negligible fee (25 a year, perhaps) to hear the high bandwidth streams, and the low ones are free?