I was reading today that Yahoo, the latest to enter the market of downloadable music, is hurting the stocks of Napster, Real Networks and even Apple with its new service. But, once again, another company has picked a bad model for providing music to its customers
Like Napster and Real Networks, Yahoo is operating on a monthly RENTAL fee that allows customers to download unlimited songs for a subscription fee, but once you leave the service, the songs become inoperative.
Sure, it’s a good way to keep people coming back if they want to keep their music, but it will never best Apple’s iTunes because iTunes is the only online downloading service that lets you keep the songs permanently.
I just don’t get subscription fees. It’s one thing to rent a movie, but these are songs. people play CD’s over and over and over for years.
And what happens if one of the services folds? Then, you are stuck with a bunch of inoperative MP3’s. It seems likely that at least one will eventually discontinue. Call me crazy, but I’d like to own my own MP3’s.
As usual, most of the rest of the technology world is behind Apple, one of the many reasons Macs rule. 🙂