Why Subscription Music is Viable
I just opened Rhapsody and cued up Roscoe by Midlake. It’s a great song from a band I’d never heard of until I watched a snowboarding video recently. I watched the credits at the end, found the song in Rhapsody and have really been enjoying Midlake’s mellow rock. This isn’t a unique experience for me. I find lots of new music from snowboarding and mountain bike videos. If I had to pay for each song I wanted to listen to, and then the subsequent songs I’ve discovered from those band’s catalogues, I’d easily be out hundreds of dollars.
My point? Subscription music is more than just an option for me. It’s a must-have. I consider myself a music junkie. My tastes range from Wu-Tang to Benni Benassi to American Analog Set, and I find that my tastes change considerably with the seasons. I am constantly stumbling upon new music that I end up loving, obsessing over, and learning from. It can be an expensive habit if I’m not careful to manage it. I don’t think I would have my love affair with music if it weren’t for my Rhapsody account.
There seems to be a fundamental resistance to accept the subscription model. Reading the articles and, even more so, the comments from last week’s CNET and Technologizer articles about this subject got me obsessed. I find it ridiculous, but not surprising, that the majority of people won’t try subscription music. Are you afraid that you’ll like it? Are you afraid to turn on iTunes?
What if the resistance was psychological? Most people barely bat an eye at renting movies or cable TV. Perhaps that’s because it’s what we’ve always done. And “renting” music seems completely weird. People say they want to have a physical copy of the music. Last I checked most people keep their music on their mass storage devices and shove the physical copies into boxes. Of course, there are the “real” music fans…the collectors who have own everything or it’s just not good enough. Often times the collectors scoff at the notion of subscription. The thing is- the collectors are the ones who I think would benefit most from subscription music.
Imagine having access to seven million songs. For the true collector this should be a dream. Every genre, every era, every hair band. The possibilities are endless. With most services there is a music discovery feature built in. It’s not very fun if you have to buy each song you want to try or can only hear 30 second snippets. Subscription lets you test the waters. If you love it, add it to your collection. If you don’t then you don’t ever have to listen to it again, or throw anything away.
I hear and read people saying subscription music is not very accessible, that the DRM inhibits it. I actually haven’t had this problem at all. Not only can I listen to Rhapsody on my work PC, but I can listen to it on my Mac, on my portable player, in my car, and in any room in my house via my Sonos. It’s everywhere I need and want it to be. Can I burn a CD with it? No, but I don’t find the need for a disc comes up very often.
I’m now listening to RJD2- another artist I discovered from a mountain bike video. Listening to RJD2 has lead me to DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist. All have albums or single tracks that are awesome. I cue them up without hesitation, knowing I’ve got 4 hours of awesome music ahead of me. My “collection”, if I could afford it, would be massive. It would take up rooms in my house. But since I can’t afford thousands of dollars a year in music, I’ll stick to my small monthly fee, and continue to peruse and love my collection that is seven million strong.
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IMO all are viable..
however in this adonomics era which people give free things bundled with ad, everything paid are premium… meaning, people who buy guaranteed will not see ad and people who don’t will choose free music..
Gerd Leonhard study this stuff and already made his conclusion on new competition of music business..
nice post
I’ve always been a fan of subscription services. I have no problem with them in theory, and think it’s a smart solution to my music problem. However, I don’t currently subscribe to one. Years ago I tried Yahoo Music Unlimited, and was acceptably happy with it. But the problem is, I use an iPod, and paying for music I can’t take with me is a pain. They also raised their prices and it quit being useful enough.
Another problem I have with this model is that I’m already paying for a lot of subscriptions. I pay for my cell phone, magazine subscriptions, hosting fees, for my internet connection, for cable television,and netflix, for online subscriptions to services like basecamp, harvest invoicing, and membership forums to professional groups that provide access to solid information with little noise. I just keep paying. At a certain point, my threshold for monthly ‘dues’ becomes reached, and I begin resisting things that want me to pay every month, regardless of how much usage I get.
Shit, I even subscribe to Usenet access. It’s like Rhapsody but I… um… well nevermind.
In the end, I think this is a marketing problem. I think Rhapsody, Napster, and Yahoo have all tried relatively the same thing, and guess what, it’s not working. Until someone figures out two main problems, I don’t see adoption happening.
1. The iPod is king. No getting around it and pretending that support for Samsung’s music player is going to work. Either figure out a way to work with the iPod or continue down the same path.
2. This story isn’t working. You have to get people to realize that ‘listening’ is what’s important. Hearing the music, finding new music, sharing music. This is the critical piece. Don’t tell them they don’t need to own it, you’re just reminding them of the hangup. And I see part of how you get them excited about listening and experiencing music is offering tools that exceed their expectations.
One example of this would be subsidizing hardware sales with subscriptions. I don’t want to buy new hardware just to listen to music I’m paying for (see any ‘home solutions products compatible with Rhapsody). Why not bundle the two. Subscribe to Rhapsody and get a subsidized hardware product of your choice for free with a 2-year contract. If signing up meant I only had to pay $15 a month AND I got a tool that helped me experience the music in the ways I listen, now we’re talking. Even if I have to commit. The cell phones figured this out right away. And give us the choice of home systems, portable systems– you can even give me a simple one for free and charge a little more for the fancy ones. But reduce the barrier to entry and give me a complete, bundled, working solution with my one subscription package.
Also, learn from sites like twitter and last.fm and flickr. Make that music I’ve purchased accessible. Let other people grab it and fuck with it via APIs. I don’t care if you make me sign in, but let other services do something with it that you didn’t think of. Twitter is a perfect example. I can tweet through 100 different applications. I still have to prove it’s me, but I don’t have to go to twitter.com to use their service. Let other people create desktop applications, web-based applications, mobile applications that deliver Rhapsody music (with authentication) to me in a variety of ways. If you are already doing this, I don’t know about it, and therefor you’re missing me.
This is a different story than what’s being told, and it’s what it would take to get me to sign up.
See, the problems of subscription service are….
1.) I never actually ‘own’ music files I download from the service.
2.) DRM problems.
3.) Not just limited to subscription, but file quality problem.
See, we become ‘collector’ to ‘own’ the music, not infinitely ‘borrow’ them with periodical fees. I am surprised you have not understood minds of us music lovers and audiophiles regarding this issue.
Now, DRM problem indeed cause a lot of havoc. While in theory it should be easy, but it is nightmare to configure system for steaming music in my home network. Not to mention many of music collectors are still stick to CD/SACD players (and LD as well)
Finally, we are not buying degraded mp3 files from you guys (and other internet services) That’s simple as that, Yes, it is not possible to distinguish 256kb file and lossless file by blind-test, but keep in mind any transcoding from these mp3 files means further degradtion of sound quality, effectively ‘locking’ the music inside of mp3.
Like me, many others won’t spend a dime unless you provide lossless quality (if you don’t know what I am talking about, I guess… well XD ) and allow us to ‘own’ the music.
And Subscription just does not fit on these two absolute requirements.
In the end I spend my money on Linn Records (from England) and mp3sparks (semi-legal), and other places to get lossless music files.
We just added you to my Music News Reader. Keep up the good work. Look forward to reading more from you in the future.
(PS, we just pushed out BETA 2 of OUR site)
Sincerely,
The Songnumbers Team
For the most part it seems to me that it’s “I-World” or “My World.” I (middle-aged female) work in an office full of Gen-Y’s and I am the only one there NOT living in “I-World.” I am the only one there using a subscription service. And I am the only one there who has quick and easy access to everything from Big Band to Hawaiiana. Before I bought my second Rhapsody player, I re-evaluated my choice by previewing some of the other music services out there. It didn’t take long for me to figure out that I would maintain my subscription with Rhapsody. I’m not in love with the software. It can be very buggy. The interfaces aren’t very slick. And yes, the files aren’t lossless. But I can be very happy going through my day carrying playlists for every mood, every season. I couldn’t afford to purchase the 2000 songs currently on my player. So what if I’m renting as long as I’m happy?
The market for subscription services is large enough- one problem is that most folks I know don’t even know this product exists. Their kids have them convinced that the only portable music player made comes from Apple. I believe this should be marketed more heavily to a more mature listening audience. We just want to hear what we want to hear. We want to discover new genres without having to commit (maybe I’ll tire of Bossa Nova in a few months?) You might be having a Christmas party, but don’t want to drop a bundle on a bunch of CD’s you’ll llisten to maybe once. Whatever the occasion, I know I can find a soundtrack for it.
My point is that I’m not a collector, I’m a listener. having access to so many musical styles has led me places I hadn’t thought I’d be. I can flirt with almost anything audible.