Apple Music and the Terrible Return of DRM

An anonymous reader writes: Apple's rumored music streaming service looks set to materialize soon, and a lot of people are talking about how good it might be. But Nilay Patel is looking at the other side — if the service fits with Apple's typical mode of operation, it'll only work with other Apple products. "That means I'll have yet a fourth music service in my life (Spotify, Google Play Music, Prime, and Apple Music) and a fourth set of content exclusives and pricing windows to think about instead of just listening to music." He points out Steve Jobs's 2007 essay on the state of digital music and notes that Jobs seemed to feel DRM was a waste of time — something forced on Apple by the labels. "But it's no longer the labels pushing DRM on the music services; it's the services themselves, because locking you into a single ecosystem guarantees you'll keep paying their monthly subscription fees and hopefully buy into the rest of their ecosystem. ... Apple Music might be available on Android, but it probably won't be as good, because Apple wants you to buy an iPhone.... There's just lock-in, endless lock-in. Is this what we wanted?"

Comments

Re:ZOMG

[zieroh]

Nobody claimed that they were, though if Apple have exclusives through their service, people still may miss out if they're not using it.

Did you even bother RTFS?

That aside, your implication that any criticism of the service is invalid because people aren't being forced to buy it is the same argumentative fallacy that crops up here over and over again.

Bullshit and utter nonsense. In a capitalist system, anyone can sell anything they want (within the confines of legality) and the market will determine whether that was a reasonable idea or not. PERIOD. Whining about whether such a product or service should be allowed to exist misses the point that it's not up to you whether they should be allowed to exist or not. If you don't like it, buy something else. Better yet, offer a better service, instead of trying to convince us all of the superiority of your smug position on the matter.

I am fucking tired of all the whinging from all the neckbeards around here about which products fit into their philosophical world view. It's a product. It will live and die by whether anyone buys it. Your personal stance on the matter means sweet fuck-all.