iTunes Radio Is Now "Apple Music" (and You Need a Subscription)

New submitter Kevin by the Beach writes: If you haven't noticed... If you try to play iTunes radio on your devices it is now paywalled (you can get a free three month trial at apple.com/music). The only reason I noticed is that I have an Apple TV which at one time had an iTunes Radio App. That app is no longer. Same is true if you select Music on your iOS devices, if you get to the iTunes Radio menu, you are redirected to sign up for the free trial. This reminds me of why I am forever reluctant to trade the music I have locally (on CDs, hard drives, and a few bits of vinyl I've been unwilling to jettison) for any kind of streaming service, whether it promises perpetuity or good-until-next-payment.

Comments

Physical media is king

[TWX]

This reminds me of why I am forever reluctant to trade the music I have locally (on CDs, hard drives, and a few bits of vinyl I've been unwilling to jettison) for any kind of streaming service

Absolutely. Yes, it can be a pain to store physical media. Yes, it can be a pain when media formats change over time. Yes, it can be a pain when one makes the wrong choice when new competing formats come out and the one chosen ends up being the loser.

On the other hand all of the media that I own, across vinyl, cassette tape, compact disc, VHS, Laserdisc, DVD, and Blu-Ray can be played at any time and so long as my machines continue to work, will always be playable, and given that I still find good used machines for all of these formats I don't expect to be in the situation of not being able to find a functional player in my lifetime.

And all of this is even before getting to the concept of ripping the content to digital.

Re:Physical media is king

[nine-times]

It seems to me that this is not exactly relevant to the change. Apple had a free broadcast Internet radio service which they've moved to include into a paid subscription steaming service. The issue of "buying" never entered into it.

There have actually been events where your argument would be more applicable. For example, Microsoft ran a service where you could "purchase" DRM-protected music. They then shut down that service and all the music people had "purchased" became useless. That's a good reason to talk about buying CDs rather than subscription services.

What we have here is more comparable to, if a normal free FM radio station decided to move to SiriusXM, and you now had to pay to listen. It's reasonable to be displeased with the change, but it doesn't really make sense to be like, "that's why I purchase all of my radio stations, so that they can never be taken away from me."

Re:Physical media is king

[Mike Van Pelt]

No, the worst format of the 20th century was 8-Track. Truly hideous.

About to jump the shark...

[Sigmon]

Apple overcame the problem that often drove me away from purchasing CDs from the music industry... Being forced to pay $12-18 for one or two songs I want and a bunch of junk I don't care about. Now I find this Apple Music junk popping up on my iPhone half the time when I, say, search my music library for a song. It's starting to get annoying and if they don't back-off they're going to kill their golden goose.

Translation:

[Schnapple]

"A giant company gave me an incredible service to use for free for many years. Now they have the audacity to require me to start paying for it instead of continuing to offer it to me for free in perpetuity. In response I will proudly brag about the completely unrelated point of how I continue to possess the physical items which I was in no way being told to get rid of before anyway."

I agree it's unfortunate that the free radio stations are gone (although Beats 1 continues to be free) but getting all high and mighty about how you still have albums on disc and DRM-free formats (which I do as well, for what it's worth) is unrelated and annoying to trot out.