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Yahoo Music Shutting Down, Users Going to Real
Tech.Luver sends in word of Yahoo's decision to exit the subscription music business. Yahoo's current subscribers — the company doesn't disclose how many it has — will be switched over to Real's Rhapsody service, and Yahoo will promote Real on its site. Yahoo had priced its subscription service significantly below Real's: $5.99 a month (if users pay a year in advance), vs. Rhapsody memberships at $12.99 a month and up. The Mercury News wonders how the Yahoo-Real deal would fare if Microsoft takes over — not well, the betting goes.
This argument always fascinates me. The same is true of your cable TV, but I don't see constant bitching about the cable pay model. The music goes away if you stop paying because you're paying for a SERVICE, not for the music. If you want to pay for the music, then Amazon/iTunes is all there for you. But to buy just what I have in my sansa right now you'd be paying about 5-10 years worth of rhapsody monthly fees. Do you think you'll still want all that music that far in the future? I know I don't listen to many of my old CDs, so Rhapsody is great value for me.
And as far as the comment above this, you're asking the company to let you download whatever you want, whenever you want, as much as you want, in any bitrate/codec you want, on the HONOR system, the promise that you won't download it and then stop paying and share it with your friends?
DRM for music that you guy is lame, I agree. But DRM for music that you buy as a service makes total sense and I have no problem with it. Sure it would be nice if they could all agree so I didn't have to have both a Nano and a Sansa player. But Sansa players are 40 bucks and its plug and play from there so I'm not losing sleep over it.