"I don't think the success of the iPod can continue in the long term, as good as Apple may be," Gates was quoted as telling German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in an interview.
Trust Mr. Gates to stir things up. Maybe it was when he invited Bono over to his house and saw his cool U2 iPod.
More music news
Yahoo is getting into the music scene (story) and plans to charge $7/month or $60/year for unlimited downloads of more than 1 million songs--which is about half the price of Napster To Go and way less than iTunes's model of paying $0.99/song.
Of course, I love my iPod so much...and I have all my CDs burned into iTunes already. So for now, the price is right but the convenience is wrong (for me). If I hadn't already gone down the iTunes yellow brick road...I would SO be on Yahoo's doorstep with my $7!
3 comments:
Alice,
I suppose the beauty of a free market is that it encourages different service models, and then we are free to select the service model that works for us. But I have to say that the service model that works for me is definitely iTunes rather than Yahoo. With Yahoo, when you stop paying all your music goes away. With iTunes, you pay per song but then it's yours -- you can walk away any time. But like I said, that's the beauty of a free market.
The problem with the iTunes model is that it does not allow for ANY kind of integration with any other service.
Take Yahoo's new service for example, sure I can pay $7 a month for unlimited access but I can also jump over to Real's Rhapsody should they run a special. Plus both services will allow me to buy on a per song basis those tunes I want to keep should I stop paying $7 a month. Plus the per song is cheaper that iTune's. The former head of the RIAA, Hillary Rosen just ripped Apple after years of chearleading iTunes (while at the RIAA) them for this very reason noew that she has to pay for her music like everyone else.
Now here is the kicker for the cult of Mac, Apple's DRM ONLY supports the pay per song model at this time. So unless Apple turns 180 and adds a subscription model to thier DRM, you'll never have an library audiobook checkout model that will be accessable on the iPod.
Yep, too true. Both comments.
I had someone ask me the other day: "Are libraries worried about the physical CDs people check out? Don't they knew we are burning them straight to out hard drives?"
So I tap-danced...but wondered. We're all into DRM with eBooks and eAudiobooks with publishers. Are we collectively turning a blind eye to CD-burning through sneaknet patrons?
More importantly, do we care? Don't we have bigger things to think about? (That would be my response!)
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