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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 $10,000 to fill an iPod with songs downloaded from iTunes or with music converted to MP3 from newly purchased CDs, but there's a lot of downloadable and legit free music out there, not to mention Griffin's RadioShark.
Just get on the Napster 14 day free trial and convert their stuff to mp3.
The Farewell Tour II
how hard is it to ocnvert a file from napster to a cd or to mp3 where it is free of DRM?
...Or until they go bankrupt.
It all sounds impressive to begin with but there are too many catches.
"Who says nothing is impossible? Some people do it every day!" - Alfred E. Neuman
John Gruber has good commentary on this here and here that cuts through the marketing to point out the small print.
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I have been listening to this guy's work for a while now: http://www.hypnotyza.com/radio/ [hypnotyza.com] I'm not affiliated with the site at all, just stumbled across it while reading a message board. He's a DJ who mixes live to hardrive and puts up the shows (about an hour long) as mp3's. Interesting stuff.
Judging from cable and satellite radio subscription fees just keep rising and rising.
I would expect nothing less from the music rental services..
I have a feeling that renting your music will be harder and harder to get stuff you want. (like some bands charging more than 9.99$ for an itunes album..)
itunes "playlist" which users post there mixes is very clever. When you select a song, you can search for playlists with that song on it (more songs you might like..)
However the napster "try" part is a way to discover new music I might or might not shell out cash for. Then again alot of bands have sites with free downloadable mp3s..
If my free 3 month trial of XM radio has taught me anything (I bought a car), there is a lot of music out there I don't care for.
...about Napster. Explicitly, anyway.
Once you stop paying your $15/month or $180/year, which will likely become $17, and $20, and so on, in the future, you no longer have access to your music.
If you want to keep it forever - or burn it to CD or use it on something other than an approved device - you have to buy it for a dollar. Just like with iTunes.
Also, that money you're spending on Napster is 180 songs, or 18 albums per year, on the iTunes music store, that you get to keep forever. I suppose it just all depends on your usage style.
That, and whether you want to use the hard-drive based music player with 92% market share.
To say nothing of the fact that Apple will introduce a subscription plan if they need to, anyway.
Do we really want to pay for everything monthly for as long as we live?
I don't mind a monthly fee for something I'll use within that month, or that has a time-based cost component, but you try to bill me monthly for something where I can pay once (even a higher up-front fee) and you'll lose my business. It's not worth it, long term.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
It's worth mentioning that you can spend 99c / track at Napster too if you really like that model. So at Napster you have more choice. FWIW I think Napster is easier to use too.
sorry, that should have been http://www.hypnotyza.com/radio/
I think this could go over quite well. An all-you-can-download plan where you can get as much as you want and only pay per month. Even if the general public won't download 14,000 songs in a month, they like the idea of being able to do something they probably never will do. This is why SUV's and all-you-can-eat buffet menus sell so well.
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I demand justification for such a declaration.
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.
"Is Napster to Go the future of digital music distribution?"
No, FTP servers and underground P2P are. Morons.
Apple is using Napster like a fisherman uses chum.
Let Napster burn thru their millions trying to convince people that subscription is the way to go.
The moment... and I do mean the _moment_ apple sees this catching on and taking root, they will come out with iTunes subscriptions and blow napster out of the water...
This 10000$ to fill an iPod is a bit exaggerated - keep in mind that a typical iPod owner has managed to accumulate a considerable CD collection over time. I have been collecting music ever since CD's became widely available in my area, which means that I've had roughly 10 years to acquire more than 100 disks by the time iPod appeared. And that equals the capacity of iPod mini, even without breaking the law:)
...not iPod compatible. Thats a show-stopper for the 20 MILLION iPod users out there.
I can buy a song on iTunes for $1 and keep it for the rest of my life, lets just say thats 80 years.
Since the Napster songs go away as soon as you stop subscribing I need to pay $15 a month for the next 80 years. That folks, is $14,400.
Considering I still listen to my grandfather's 78's that price just keeps going up and up.
Introducing Microsoft Vacuum 1.0 The first Microsoft product that doesn't suck.
I'm a happy Rhapsody user, for $25 every three months. The one important qualification, of course: I spend roughly 12 hours a day near a Windows computer. For me at least the article is totally right about the 'value proposition' -- Rhapsody saves me money if it saves even one hour a month trying to find music online, and it offers a variety of music that far outstrips the 8 CDs per year I could buy with the equivalent money. Admittedly I don't have those 8 CDs at the end of the year -- but having any music I want, instantly, for a year, is worth a hell of a lot more than having 8 CDs for, realistically speaking, about five years before they break or the format shifts again ...
...
The criticisms about the interface definitely apply to Rhapsody too, though -- playlists suck, OS integration sucks, locating music is mediocre, software is Windows only. Definitely can't hold a candle to iTunes. 90% of my music used to be illegal downloads. Now 90% of my music is paid for, via Rhapsody, and it saves me money. If iTunes offers a similar service for $10 a month, they'll be getting my money in a heartbeat.
All of that, of course, assumes I don't need this stuff to be portable. If iTunes to go has come out by the time I'm *not* spending 12 hours a day near a Windows box, they'll be getting another iPod sale and a subscription. If it hasn't, it'll be Napster
Now you know.
This is beyond true.
;) )
I know that apple's iTMS works only with the iPod as a digital media player. I currently own an iPod (albeit, the short-live iPod+HP), and am about to send it in for service (under warranty, thankfully) due to hard drive spin-up problems (or corrupted FAT sectors, or something). I know that if it weren't under warranty, the next thing I buy will most likely be a Creative Jukebox or something.
I've only bought about 14 songs on iTMS, mainly because my dad bought me a prepaid gift card, but if it weren't for JHymn (google it, quite a neat tool), I would lose all those songs. I plan on buying whatever player offers the best value, but I do like the iPod (and hope that the next one isn't quite a dud as this one
You can still get old versions of winamp at oldversion.com The Update to 5.08 was the fix to WMA-DRM.
Disregarding for a moment, the fact that this will work for precisely as long as it takes for someone to work out how to remove the DRM, has anyone commented on how artists get compensated under this model?
It seems to me that the best that could be hoped for is some (small) percentage of the revenue subscription is divided up by the proportion of downloads per artist.
Because a subscription service will encourage more indiscriminate listening behaviour, this may have some strange consequences. On a positive note, it may spread the money paid to artists out more widely.
On the other hand, it may also mean that less popular releases are swamped by the monthly traffic in the latest manufactured pop album, and make even less than they do these days.
It would be interesting if a subscription service tracked what you actually kept/listened to, rather than downloaded, listened to once, and deleted. It might even encourage the production of less rubbish.
Of course, the main point, from the perspective of publishers, is that they get a guaranteed income stream regardless of the quality of the music they produce, which may just remove the last tiny bit of incentive they have to try and produce music that people actually want to listen to.
... that's the same comment that gets posted on here every time a subscription music service comes up.
The point could be equally well made about every other subscription service, though -- why rent city water that keeps getting more expensive and goes away when you stop paying, when, with a larger initial investment, you could dig your own well and have water forever?
The answer is, gee, they both make sense in different situations. It depends *how much* more expensive the initial investment is than the subscription, and whether the specific resource you are buying will always be sufficient, or it would be better to have a provider committed to keeping new sources available.
You acknowledged that it depends on your usage style, but I just wanted to drive this point home: pointing out that a subscription service stops when you stop paying for the subscription, and therefore is different from a one-time purchase, is no longer insightful. They're both different; they both make sense sometimes.
Personally, I pay $100 per year for Rhapsody. For me it makes sense -- there's no way I could purchase enough music for $100 to satisfy my needs, and downloading music for free would cost me literally thousands of dollars in terms of time spent. If it doesn't make sense for you, fair enough -- but don't act like it's a blinding insight to point out that I'm renting rather than buying.
iTunes is like $1 per song, meaning it would cost $10,000 to fill an iPod.
Napster charges $15/month for unlimited downloads, right?
Do the math. Find out if you really download more than 15 songs per month, and that will indicate which one is the better deal. Cause who would pay $15/month for a service when you only download perhaps once a week?
Maybe I'm not typical either, but I'll bet the typical user is closer to 550 than 10,000. And how did I get my 550? Mostly ripped from CDs in my existing collection, plus about 90-100 bought from iTunes over the last year. That's $90-$100 for me instead of $15x12 or $180. And I get to burn them to CD if I want (and I do want), and keep them for as long as I want. My monthly bill? Whatever I happened to buy that month. Maybe $2 or $3 or even zero. The Napster math makes absolutely no sense to someone like me. I don't want to rent my music, I want to own it. It's cheaper this way too.
Doe iPod have that 2x fast forward where you can still hear the sound? Because then it's only 3 years.
The Farewell Tour II
I can't understand how Napster or even the more successful ITMS manages to make any money. I don't know a single person who's used either service. Are these companies operating at a loss? Obviously it takes money to keep napster running, the ITMS I can understand, it has all of Apple behind it to prop it up even if it's not making a dime for them, but how is Napster supporting itself?
Maybe I'm just being irrational here but it would seem that Napster is doomed unless a 3rd party is injecting funds into it.
What I've been doing for months now is using winamp's internet radio feature along with an awesome plug-in called Stream Ripper. It works well, and you get the quality that the stream is at, usually a very acceptable 160-192kbps.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
http://www.hypnotyza.com/radio/ [hypnotyza.com] I'm not affiliated with the site
Really?
Speaking of free good music ... I compiled a list of sites that host indie music, nearly all of which have completly free downloads. You can see it here. Worth checking out for anyone whose listening habits aren't limited to Top 40 Radio...
Who doesn't like free music?
*BUT* that's not all that important in this case. Important are the sources, the professional encoder used (or not) by the store and the care they took.
c't, Germany's most prestigious computer magazine, tested a number of different online stores recently and the quality differences between different stores, all using wma at the same bitrate, were staggering. It was also remarkable that Sony's Atrac, that's normally not considered to be an exceptionally good audio codec, offered some of the best quality. Apparently it's not the codec bitstream that's the problem in this case but the encoders offered, especially the software encoder in SonicStage seems to be optimized for speed and apparently doesn't really care about quality. Other example: mp3. If you compare the Fraunhofer reference encoder to the latest lame you're gonna think you listen to two different codecs. IOW codecs important, encoders even more important.
Moral of the story: AAC may be better when we look at the freely available encoders but that doesn't necessarily mean that the differences aren't a lot smaller if we look at music stores or that the codec has to be clearly better respectively.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Not true at all. When you buy from the iTMS, the music goes into iTunes, not to an iPod.
From iTunes, you can either play it as is or route the music to other places such as burning a CD, which lets you play it in a portable CD player, car player, etc. You can also rip that CD in both iTunes OR ANY OTHER MUSIC PROGRAM, to put on ANY OTHER MUSIC DEVICE.
It's really the convenience and hyperfast synching that confuses people that iTMS is ONLY for iPods, but it's more true to say that iTMS is a way of getting music into iTunes. Where it goes from there is still largely up to you. It's not forever locked onto an iPod when you buy the track.
It all comes down to simple "buy" vs. "rent".
These decisiojns happen all the time - think of major purchases like a home or a car, there are both choices - 36 mo. car lease vs. buying the car - rent an appartment vs locking in that 30 yr. mortgage.
On the surface, looks like the answer is simple - offer both because there is choice and then you let the people decide - and that is a simple answer and I think that it is a good one.
But consider the flipside for a moment - these major purchases I just mentioned offer both models from a financial model too - not everyone can afford the downpayment and 30 yr mortgage, some people like a new car every three years and would rather rent. Point is, these comparisons aren't that comparable.
The original slashdot article was comparing business models and the problem with the $15/mo napster model is that there is no "rent-to-own" scenario. There is NO ONE in their right mind who would rather rent music for 20 yrs. versus buy the albumns they like for a lifetime - especailyl the way that music sort of picks you - we listen to the same 80's trackes over and over - country music, old hip-hop, whatever.
So perhaps the better model is a "rent-to-own" where you pay a lower monthly amount ($10) and you get X songs per month to download and Y ( X) to 'register' as your forever and they don't count against your X downloads next month and don't expire when you stop paying.
Vioa! You get to 'try' new music and 'keep' the stuff you like - all for one low price per month. And just like a cell phone, if you want more songs to get registered forever, just pay an additional fee - just liek a per minute fee over your air minutes.
Now right now the $0.99/track, $9.99/albumn model is WAY easier payment plan thatn my cell phone bill, but perhaps there is something to the convolated system AT&T, Cingular, SPrint, and others have created.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
The real question here is would the current music industry survive a complete and total move to a subscription based service. This becomes questionable. They're doing it now because theres money involved. . . Quite a bit of money.
.remember divx). Ah the future is wide open.
However a total transition would mean that no single band is making the money. Possibly leading to one of two extremes. One, the record labels continue only pouring their money into a couple of bands (and their own wallets). To an extreme not seen today. These are the reason people sign up for service. Music becomes completely manufactured etc. Why bother supporting these smaller bands.
Then you have independent labels who if they're not getting money from the subscription services (or aren't involved or getting enough) cut back musicians etc. They fall off the wayside. On top of this we have no easy distinction of who to pay for what unless we base sales purely on downloads. This works great for major labels, unless people don't go for it.
Under a second extreme we have the record labels stop spending money to produce hit making acts. Afterall they are locked into deals with napster, and itunes or whoever to distribute their content forever. 90% of their income is now made off these deals. Theres only 2 music companies (or maybe only one major monopoly by this point). Music turns into a cash cow and its you're either on their train or not, no point in spending money on expensive videos etc because everyone pays the same. The labels won't like this (unless they have more and more premium content). The industry starts to collapse on itself.
The industry doesn't like that and if a subscription service couldn't stand in parallel with their current model they won't allow for it, and people who have spent $15/month for 5 years because they thought it was cheaper all of a sudden own zero music to listen to. Sounds wonderful as well.
Of course their are other extremes in between, or the possibility that bands end up taking control of the industry by refusing to go along with their tactics. By not needing these record labels to distribute their music (thank you internet) and the production can be done much cheaper thanks to rapidly advancing computer technology, they can make it on their own.
The futures likely to be a combination of all of these (with the added thought of a pay-per-listen strategy that I could imagine the industry come up with. .
Phil
Something I think that gets overlooked in all of this, is that hte iPod can function as more than just a music player. It can be (and from what i've read around here on /. is) used as portable storage for files photos etc. Wasn't LOTR saved to iPods during filming? Along with owning an iPod, there comes utility as well as function. I have actually gotten up to around 8000-8500 tracks on my ipod. Mostly because I've been collecting music since I was 16, not to mention my friends music, and checking out napster when it was illegit. I'm only 26 now. Maybe I'm uncommon, but I don't tend to delete music just because it's not in style anymore (Hall & Oates anyone?). Interestingly enough, I find that my 40gig iPod isn't nearly big enough. I'm going to eventually get a 60gig (or bigger iPod) sometime this year, because in addition to playing music anywhere I go, I can plug it into any computer and share information. Whether it's for helping a friend fix their computer, sharing the latest linux distro, a tv show, a movie, or whatever I may want/need at any given point. Saying that the iPod isn't worth it because it would take 10,000$ 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.
...but it's always been that way, hasn't it? If an iPod was around 10 years ago, it still would have cost you about $9000. It's just the price of OWNING music, always has been.
Napster is different. It LOANS the music to you. So comparing them is like comparing *insert obligatory Apple dichotomy here*.
The price difference is still a choice for consumers. Do I want to be able to listen to that music after I stop paying Napster? If yes, then iTunes, if no, the Napster. Done.
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
> Is Napster to Go the future of digital music distribution ?
No it isn't. It's an absolutely crap idea.
The idea that I would buy a licence to listen to a piece of music is completely insane. What happens when Napster goes tits up ? Your expensively acquired music collection is lost forever. When "The Alternative Record Company" go bust my back collection of "The Alternative Record Company" CDs don't suddenly evaporate nor do they become unplayable. I can also rip any CDs I buy to any new formats that are invented so the music pretty much stays with me for life.
Sorry but my view on consuming is very simple. If I buy something it's mine to do with as I please. In other words I can pull it apart to see how it works, I can recombine it to make other things, I can use it in ways it was never intended to be used, I can even smash it to bits, shoot it or put it on a bonfire and burn it. It's none of your bsiness what I do with because I bought it. It's mine now.
Honestly anyone falling for this sort of crud deserves what they get. They deserve to get nothing for their money. They're idiots plain and simple.
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
Just the best quote ever.
:)
Just the best movie ever.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.