Slashdot Mirror
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.
First they ship all there pictures to flicker, then they get rid of there version of myspace 360. Now yahoo music. I understand restructuring but they are doing horrible things to the brand. With the news of msn trying to by them out. If I was an investor I would be bailing out. Without content what do users flock to ?
I love Rhapsody. It has its problems, like forcing you to too frequently upgrade the software, but the basic subscription idea is great, and Rhapsody has a very good selection. You can pretty much just put in any artist, obscure or famous, and 19 times out of 20, their music pops up ready to listen to.
The reason that the pay subscription model is not insanely popular is probably because it is competing against the "free subscription" model, where you get all the same music, but for free. Who is offering that? Millions of torrent clients, spread across the internet. For myself, I guess I'll just be a chump and pay twelve bucks a month for all the music I could ever want and then some.
Already lodged my complaint of anti-competitive behavior. They've stopped deals that were less obnoxious than that one....
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
I really like my Sansa Connect WiFi enabled player with the Yahoo Music Unlimited service. I knew there was trouble ahead but I figured it would still work as a regular mp3 player once Yahoo Music Unlimited goes dark. The Sansa Connect runs Linux and uses Mono. Time to start hacking. A general purpose WiFi internet radio receiver would be cool. You can find Sansa Connects for under $90 as recently as last week and probably less next week.
"DRM is like violence: if it doesn't work, use more."
After all the complaints by digruntled customers after Yahoo Downgrades MusicMatch Jukebox and removed many of the features of that application, failed to get it working 100%, and a host of other problems, one might ask why they just didn't give the customer what they want? That was the return of the MusicMatch Jukebox program the way it was in its last release.
It seems that the music business is in the business of denying customers what they want. Just as the RIAA is seeing drastic declines in music sales because of similar tactics and a blatant refusal to monetize the net, Yahoo! music did the same thing - refusing to satisfy their customers and give them value for their dollar. This is what happens.
One must ask, "why they never learn?" There are better and more value-for-your-dollar options out there. All Yahoo Music had to do was give the consumer value for their dollar.
Banjo - The more I know about Windoze, the more I love *nix
I actually feel bad for them for having to pay such a high price for their early bad decisions. I mean, I shit-canned them back in the late 90's when they pulled those stunts, but they've matured a lot, and are one of the most complete players out there (although .mov files have quit working on them recently).
I'm glad they are paying the price, if for no other reason to serve as an example.
They screwed the pooch - over and over again. They justifiably lost marketshare and honor and I sincerely hope that they are brought up as an example when companies are deciding to do something anti-consumer.
Perhaps they should have just changed their name and started over.
I wasn't a believer in the music subscription model either, but eventually I tried Rhapsody on a free trial, and I discovered that I like it and I would use it. I think I would even pay the new higher monthly subscription price for it. That is I would if I didn't live in Canada, where I'm not allowed to subscribe to Rhapsody because of the regional licensing schemes of the big music cartels. But Yahoo Unlimited provided service in Canada, so I subscribed to that instead. So now Rhapsody is going to take over Yahoo's music subscription service? So what happens to the Canadian subscribers? The big problem with new service models like this is that they invest a ton of money in getting people to know and accept their model - but then they can't keep it stable long enough for people to get comfortable with it. Why invest your time and effort in understanding the current deal and figuring out if it's workable for you, when they're just going to change it arbitrary next month?