Its funny you never saw that asterisk during the Super Bowl commercial. Would you rather own your 10,000 songs are rent them. Once you miss a month's $15 payment for whatever reason you entire music library goes 'poof.'
Lets do some match, based on $1 a song and $10 a CD. One full year of Napster To Go will cost you $180 a year. That is 18 CDs for one year, after that year those CDs are yours to do with whatever you want. At the end of the day (year) I would rather have 18 CDs then have to continue forking over $15 every month to continue listening to music.
Sure I have a biased opinion towards the iTunes Music Store and Apple, but forget the brand names and brand loyalty for a moment.
I do not see how people can equate digital music to satellite radio. It is the closest form of entertainment that I can compare Napster To Go with. The model works for satellite radio, it does not work for online music stores.
This will of course not prevent hordes of people to Napsters new “To Go” service. There will always be people who buy before they think.
15 is less then 10,000 after all.
Comments (5)
From what I understand, the files will still be on the device, they just won't be accessible until the license is renewed.
Posted by TDavid | February 12, 2005 10:31 AM
Posted on February 12, 2005 10:31
One piece of math you didn't do is: It would take 50 years to reach the $9,000 (Let's be fair here, it's not going to take $10,000 to fill up a 40GB iPod. There are albums with way more than 10 songs on them for $9.99.) it would take to fill up a 40GB iPod.
So the real question here is, do I want to spend $15 (assuming that they don't raise their rates during that 50 years, and that Napster stays around for 50 years) a month so that I can listen to "Napster's library" or the $9,000 or more so that I can listen to "My library".
My wife brought up an interesting point. If the person is the kind of person who gets bored with a song after a year, Napster might be a good option. They can change the music on their player as often as they like. If they are like me and have songs they like from back in the 60's, then purchasing music is probably the better choice.
Posted by Dave M. | February 12, 2005 1:11 PM
Posted on February 12, 2005 13:11
So you get a MP3 device full of songs you cannot listen too. What a deal!
Dave I see your wife's point. And I truly hope that there are people out there that want to think that way about there music, I just think Napster is taking the "a la carte" thing too far.
I guess the real question here is: when will the DRM be broken so people can, say, burn their "To Go" music to CD.
Look how long it took people to brake the iTMS DRM. Every time Apple updates iTunes, the "newer" DRM is broken yet again.
Posted by Ken Edwards | February 12, 2005 11:21 PM
Posted on February 12, 2005 23:21
Not very long apparently. :)
Posted by Dave M. | February 16, 2005 8:26 AM
Posted on February 16, 2005 08:26
Being an extremely royal Napster customer, being the record holder whne htey first came out for most amount of music purchased/downloaded, I would know. Now I have a Samsung Napster YP-920GS. It is a wonderful player, no question. It is branded with napster although we all now it is a Samsung player. It works with purchasing music and everything else. The YH-920 has the basics of the YP-910GS without the FM Tuner that works like crap. They are both branded with the Napster name. The two both cost the same when they came out. WHat is the difference? The new model YH-920, has Napster To Go Support (with Firmware update). The YP-910GS does not. If you bought a $300 player a little over a year ago, would you want to go buy it's equivelent again, just for that $15 a month. Napster should be ashamed.
Posted by Dave | February 22, 2005 8:59 PM
Posted on February 22, 2005 20:59