Amazon Music Ending Cloud MP3 Storage, Streaming Option (billboard.com)
Amazon is planning to retire its Music storage subscription service, the plan that enabled Amazon customers to upload their own music to the company's servers. From a report: Amazon Music Storage subscription plans, which let users upload music from their Mac or PC and stream them alongside the in-app on-demand and radio options, will be accepted until Jan. 15, 2018. Then, the service will run until January 2019, when it will be removed entirely. As of Monday this week, free plans -- which allow for 250 songs to be stored in the cloud -- are no longer able to upload new music to their MP3 locker.
Wait until everyone buys their Echo for Christmas - and then tell them they can't use it with their music post-purchase. I think that's called bait and switch.
Then you can sell them on your music subscription.
Amazon, Google, etc. They all launch a service, get people to use it, but not enough people, and then pull the plug.
I have Apple Cloud, whatever its called, for music storage, myself. And it's great, I can stream or pull down my music anywhere I go. But I still need to keep it on my computer (don't save any space), out of fear that they might pull the plug one day. Or just have a server crash.
These companies shouldn't just arbitrarily end services like these. If they have a lot of users, at least put the service up for bids from other developers or companies to take it over.