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Business Models: Napster to Go vs. iPod
CNet offers an interesting comparison between Napster to Go and iTunes.
For $15 a month, Napster to Go offers over 1 million songs (access to which lasts as long as subscription is valid), while songs for iPod must be purchased and last 'forever' (but it takes about $10,000 to fill an iPod). Is Napster to Go the future of digital music distribution? Would moving to an all-you-can-eat model hurt iPod business and balance the power among authors, studios, hardware makers and consumers?" It might take $10,000 to fill an iPod with songs downloaded from iTunes or with music converted to MP3 from newly purchased CDs, but there's a lot of downloadable and legit free music out there, not to mention Griffin's RadioShark.
John Gruber has good commentary on this here and here that cuts through the marketing to point out the small print.
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I prefer the iPod model for the same reason I finance (purchase) all my cars. At the end of the day, when the payments stop, I want to have something to show for my money, er, lack of bank account.
:-)
Granted, if all you're looking for is a way to get a few crappy, er, "currently popular" songs to listen to for a week, Napster's your choice. If you're a collector like me, you wouldn't touch Napster with a 1,000,000' pole.
It's a pain in the ass, but not very hard to write a program that records the DirectSound output.
Hell, I wrote one that lets you queue up a list of files and then the program will tell winamp to play each file and it will record the DirectSound output. It basically does what the no longer working outputstacker plugins did.
Of course the quality isn't going to be as good as some of the other services, but if you want a permanent copy of your "Napster music" instead of paying Napster $10-$15 each month for the privilege, you don't really have a choice.
What happens if Apple goes bankrupt? No trolling, real interest because I don't know how it's handled. How are the certificates for the iTMS files managed? Do they have to be renewed? Can you transfer them from PC to PC without a central authority?
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Something I think that gets overlooked in all of this, is that hte iPod can function as more than just a music player. It can be (and from what i've read around here on /. is) used as portable storage for files photos etc. Wasn't LOTR saved to iPods during filming? Along with owning an iPod, there comes utility as well as function. I have actually gotten up to around 8000-8500 tracks on my ipod. Mostly because I've been collecting music since I was 16, not to mention my friends music, and checking out napster when it was illegit. I'm only 26 now. Maybe I'm uncommon, but I don't tend to delete music just because it's not in style anymore (Hall & Oates anyone?). Interestingly enough, I find that my 40gig iPod isn't nearly big enough. I'm going to eventually get a 60gig (or bigger iPod) sometime this year, because in addition to playing music anywhere I go, I can plug it into any computer and share information. Whether it's for helping a friend fix their computer, sharing the latest linux distro, a tv show, a movie, or whatever I may want/need at any given point. Saying that the iPod isn't worth it because it would take 10,000$ to fill it using iTunes, is incredibly short sighted and extremely misleading. Not to mention the fact that just because you have an iPod or any digital music player for that matter dosen't mean that you have to buy music online anyways or be locked into iTunes (ephpod anyone?). If I didn't have such a large music collection, I'd still want an ipod or some kind of digital music player because it simplifies things. Why carry around 20 cds (200$) in a large case (another 10-30$), and potentially scratch them (or the copies I've made), take a chance on having them stolen (that really sucks, I had 80 cds stolen from my car in chicago one time after comdex), or just in general mess with it. I can slip my music into my pocket and go. About the only thing I can't do, is let someone borrow a CD that I may be listening to, but I can always make a note to burn one for them later.
I'm not an apple fanboy (though I'm getting a new powerbook after having used PC's for the past 10 years now) I have to say there is definately a coolness factor in owning it as well as just the way it feels in your hand.