Poll: Would you be interested in Apple offering an iTunes subscription service like Napster?

[MacRumors]

Vote: Poll: Would you be interested in Apple offering an iTunes subscription service like Napster? (http://www.macpolls.com/?poll_id=440)

[PretendPCuser]

It would be nice to have a choice from Apple. I'm sure it would be havoc with the DRM and would cause more work for Apple. I hope that Steve doesn't shy away from this potential solution if it's purely a technical hurdle. It would suck if he thought "but that would cause us a lot more work" and then just said that nobody wants it. If Napster has any subscribers, proves that some peeps do want that. Granted, Steve was talking about long term viability, and the subscription model may have flaws over the long term. We'll see.

[loneAzdgari]

I'm actually beginning to think it'd be a good idea. You could also have the option of keeping some of your downloaded music after a set time frame. Say 100 tracks every 6 months. It would definitely make buying music cheaper.

However, I'd much rather prefer much cheaper prices for flat rate downloads. Why can't we have £0.50 or even £0.25 tracks? That would only make me buy more music and probably end up giving record companies more cash.

[Bear]

I'm actually beginning to think it'd be a good idea. You could also have the option of keeping some of your downloaded music after a set time frame. Say 100 tracks every 6 months. It would definitely make buying music cheaper.That would make the DRM much more difficult to do unless you had to re-download the music with the DRM set to being purchased instead of a subscription song. Also, even if they did something like this, expect no more than half the subscription cost to be turned into downloads.

However, I'd much rather prefer much cheaper prices for flat rate downloads. Why can't we have £0.50 or even £0.25 tracks? That would only make me buy more music and probably end up giving record companies more cash.First you have to get the recording industry to be not so greedy. The best you'll probably get is prices in euro's with daily conversions to the £ for the UK.

[KLFloyd]

I'm actually beginning to think it'd be a good idea. You could also have the option of keeping some of your downloaded music after a set time frame. Say 100 tracks every 6 months. It would definitely make buying music cheaper.

But you wouldn't be BUYING the music, you'd be "RENTING" it. Some months I spend $30 on iTunes, some months I don't spend any. I'd much download what i want with one click and never have to deal with it again. It's a personal preference for me. I don't like being trapped into a monthly commitment and if I stop paying my subscription one month *poof* my music disappears.

The other long-term issue for Apple is abuse. There are already ways to get around the DRM in iTunes and people have already hacked Napster's subscription service. It's a fact of life that no matter how advanced your protection is, some 14 year old kid is going to eventually hack your DRM. With a subscription service your liability would be much higher. Pay $X amount a month, download and hack thousands of songs and then drop the subscription. A few months later, do the same thing again.

I don't know, I have strong reservations about a subscription service. I know I personally don't want one, and I think it's not a good thing for Apple in the long term.

[~Shard~]

I would say "maybe" - it depends on how Apple positioned it and what options they offered. I don't think Apple should move to a subscription-based service, but if they offered it as a choice, along with their current model, that might work. I'm not against it, but Apple would have to do it right.

[fixyourthinking]

I don't see how the artists see the subscription model as fair ... in fact - I CAN SEE how this is potentially the VERY reason labels are wanting more - because they aren't getting ANYTHING from the subscription services.

I want to own my music - this is no less compareable to buying a DVD at a store and it expiring 30 days later, if you've watched it or not.

In the future economists will be debating this like car leases - a bad idea.

[ziwi]

I would not be interested - It would be like Apple pulling the old bait and switch - buy and own the music - iTunes and the iPod - now after selling hundreds of millions of songs and tens of millions of iPods - you no longer have the right to own the music - we are subscription based - we are now just like everyone else. Thanks for shopping at apple:)

[1macker1]

I think it would be great. I'd do it for a month, then go back and buy the songs i wanted. I would do this every 6 months. I think it's a great chance for people to experience other music genere's.

This is how i found out Cold was such a kick ass band.

[asphalt-proof]

What I would like to see is a limited subscription service. You can 'rent' the song for a week then you can either buy it or 'poof' it goes away. Still, you have all the other problems associated with other substription services and a lot of pther potential headaches. But there are times when I try out a song and a week later it worn out its welcome. It will never happen but its nice to dream.

[aethier]

nope. renting is for movies not music.
purchasing a song at 99 cents is just far better [to me].

[Fender2112]

I personally don't like the subscription plan, that's why i have a radio. But do think Apple needs to it open as an option. Like or not, a lot of people find it best suited for their needs.

[dukeblue91]

I say no.
I like to own my music, and I don't need any more restrictions as is.

[mox358]

Subscription music services are pointless to me (unless you just want to rip them off and get a ton of mp3s). The iTunes model works far better for apple as a company, and for me as a legitimate consumer.

I vote NO!

[macnews]

I wouldn't want to rent my music, but I can understand some younger users perhaps interested in this model. I don't see a problem offering both, eventually, so long as you don't make me choose one over the other!

It is a shame so many young users seem to prefer (based on my non-scientific observation, don't flame me, I am generalizing) a subscription model. Some how they seem to think this is better - but then again, thinking about it, they perhaps realize how/where to get work arounds for the DRM. In that case they would be smart for getting so much music cheap. Stealing, yes - but that is the problem of the music industry for so apparently ripping off the consumer as the means for distributing music has become cheaper.

[clykins90]

I think that an iTunes streaming service would be SWEET for one reason. I would use it to stream music from my computer to an airport express :D . A to-go service I wouldn't be so interested in. I don't see a point. I wouldn't want to rent my music to go.

[emw]

I think the concept of a subscription service is nice - a lot of times I get sick of music quickly after hearing it too much. But it's really only nice for consumers, and perhaps record companies.

I don't see Apple making any more money on it, and perhaps it would even be a loss for them. From their standpoint, it's a bad idea.

[virividox]

i think the system in place now is good. the less restirctions the better

[Stampyhead]

i think the system in place now is good. the less restirctions the better
Amen. Why fix it if it isn't broken? I don't like the idea of spending money on something every month and the stuff doesn't even belong to you.

[nephron]

Imagine how much cooler iMixes would be if one looked interesting you could hit a button ang grab the whole list. Or if you could be surfing an music blog and when they recommend an album you could hit a button and the whole thing would be added to your itunes, no additional payment needed. It would be so cool. Then you could just permanently buy what you really liked.

[ldburroughs]

I say no as well. People who subscribe are throwing away their money. It's like renting vs. owning your own home. People are actually paying good money to rent songs. I tried the free subscription promotion from Napster and after I let it expire none of the songs worked. Of course I didn't expect them to work but it was pretty much instant. Then they sit there on your harddrive until you remove them manually. Isn't it easy enough to buy a single song when you want it for just .99? You no longer have to drive to the store to buy a full cd for $18.99. You can just pick and choose the individual songs you want or buy the whole cd for $9.99. Now people want to rent them? Next thing you know people will find a way to time share music libraries. It's getting out of hand. iTunes is great and the only reason they may one day offer this service is to remain competitive. I just think the whole concept is insane.

[1macker1]

The music you buy from the iTMS donen't belong to you in either model.
Amen. Why fix it if it isn't broken? I don't like the idea of spending money on something every month and the stuff doesn't even belong to you.

[Hemingray]

At first I was thinking "yes", $9.99 for unlimited downloads sounds great! 10 songs and you've already "paid" for the month. Then I read these posts and I realized that these songs aren't yours to keep! That's a big, big, NO from me!

[tveric]

Why WOULDN'T anyone be interested in at least the option being present for subscribing to this type of service? It's obvious we would all say no if it meant buying .99 tracks would go away, but of course that's not going to happen. So, if someone at Apple said to you, hey, we're thinking about offering a subscription-style service to go along with the current .99-you-own-the-music model, do you think we should? - of COURSE I'd want the option to be there! Stupid to limit yourself.

All this is moot anyway, since Apple will never offer this style of service in the foreseeable future.

[tveric]

Amen. Why fix it if it isn't broken? I don't like the idea of spending money on something every month and the stuff doesn't even belong to you.

Yeah, like going to a movie, or renting from Blockbuster/Netflix, or watching cable TV - oh wait, everybody does those already, don't they?

[mrsebastian]

maybe? in all reality, the answer for me is no. number one, i like to collect music and enjoy having that library available anytime without having to pay for it on a continual basis. which brings me to the fact that, in one month let's say there are 100 new albums in my musical tastes. the sad reality is only 1 or 2 are worth buying and keeping. while there may be individual songs i like and i would just assume buy those and make my own mixed cd once a month. in fact i do just that and label them with the month, year, and general type of music for that month. so the costs are pretty much the same, but i do get to keep my music.

[liv2wrshp]

here's the way I see it. If XM and Sirrus radio is so huge than a subscription model would work. They're willing to pay monthly fees and they can't even choose what exact song to listen to. I'd love to have access to tons of songs and then change what selection I like. It'd be cool that if you're a subscriber, you get to buy songs for $.50 so you can keep which ones you like.

[johnnyjibbs]

While I normally argue for Apple to provide more choice, I still just can't get into the whole subscription model, and so I voted no. I think Steve puts it brilliantly (and therefore it will be difficult to do a U-turn after the slating he has often given subscription models) when he goes on about the 79p ($99) a song for life, rather than $10/month over 50 years or whatever just to keep one song.

Plus there are all the piracy issues/problems.

What I don't get is what's 'new' about subcription models. I was always under the impression that subscription music models came first, then Apple innovatively invented the pay-as-you-go model with iTMS in April 2003. That got everyone looking and talking, spawned all the copycats, and really got digital music going. Now many news sites talk about the subscription model, how it is somehow better, and all ask when Apple is going to start one. And this was here to begin with? :confused:

Bottom line: I want to own my music, not rent it.

[iJaz]

While I normally argue for Apple to provide more choice, I still just can't get into the whole subscription model, and so I voted no. I think Steve puts it brilliantly (and therefore it will be difficult to do a U-turn after the slating he has often given subscription models) when he goes on about the 79p ($99) a song for life, rather than $10/month over 50 years or whatever just to keep one song.

Plus there are all the piracy issues/problems.

What I don't get is what's 'new' about subcription models. I was always under the impression that subscription music models came first, then Apple innovatively invented the pay-as-you-go model with iTMS in April 2003. That got everyone looking and talking, spawned all the copycats, and really got digital music going. Now many news sites talk about the subscription model, how it is somehow better, and all ask when Apple is going to start one. And this was here to begin with? :confused:

Bottom line: I want to own my music, not rent it.

It's not like you shouldn't be able to buy music just because they started a subscription service! Both options should be there.
I think it would be really nice if Apple offered subscription as a choice. At the moment I buy lots of albums from a famous (infamous) russian site (what do you expect, we don't have iTMS in Sweden yet!!!), many of them I get tired of pretty quick, but some albums grow on me and I go out and buy the cd. This is how a sbscription model would be great, to find the quality music out there.
And it's not like Steve hasn't changed his mind before, flash players, cheap headless macs and so on.

[bb0ys]

I tried Napster To GO for two weeks and it sucks. You are renting music by the month. You never own any music because when you stop paying, it stops playing. Unlike viewable media I like to play audio media at random times and a lot of times (because its usually just a few minutes long). Music just doesn't fit the whole 'rental' scheme the same way video does.

[bousozoku]

Maybe. I was thinking about this while I was listening to the radio in the car.

There are a lot of songs that I'd like to hear once in a while, but don't feel they're worth buying a whole CD. (I haven't bought anything from iTMS yet.) I'd like to listen to the music and maybe 200 others in a month and choose others another month.

Of course, there are satellite radio services and, even if they work through Floriduh rains, you don't choose what they play. I want my own selections. It would also be nice to be able to mix these with my own music at times, too.

Whatever happens, I'm still going to buy physical media for cherished stuff but I think I'd be willing to rent music as long as I have control and selection.

[nagromme]

What I like about the subscription idea is exploration of music, NOT paying forever. I might subscribe for a month and ONLY a month, every year or so.

So I'd pay $9.95 a month--sometimes--IF:

* You could easily buy just one month and not have to remember to cancel.

* iTunes PURCHASES of songs you heard on subscription were HALF OFF--with a maximum discount of $5/month.

So I'd really only lose $4.95, and music sales would be stimulated. I'd be motivated to buy $10 of music I previewed by streaming. Everybody wins.

But it's only useful to me as an option tacked onto iTMS. Not as a pay-forever subscription month after month. And getting my $9.95 once a year isn't much of a business model--but it would work as a PART of the Apple music "system"!

[johnnyjibbs]

I'm not a big radio listener and enjoy listening to my favourite music over and over. I feel that I only know and like a song if I have listened to it many times. I guess this is why I like buying my music, not renting it.

Others have a different view and therefore prefer a subscription model. However, I think this would be bad for iTMS because it creates customer confusion, not to mention some new AAC DRM format would need to be made to allow it all to work for the iPod, etc.

[wdlove]

I voted maybe. It would be a good idea for those that purchase music frequently. In that case it would be a winner for the customer. I'm an infrequent customer so it wouldn't pay currently.

[sjk]

Imagine how much cooler iMixes would be if one looked interesting you could hit a button ang grab the whole list. Or if you could be surfing an music blog and when they recommend an album you could hit a button and the whole thing would be added to your itunes, no additional payment needed. It would be so cool. Then you could just permanently buy what you really liked.If XM and Sirrus radio is so huge than a subscription model would work. They're willing to pay monthly fees and they can't even choose what exact song to listen to. I'd love to have access to tons of songs and then change what selection I like. It'd be cool that if you're a subscriber, you get to buy songs for $.50 so you can keep which ones you like.Exactly! Nice hearing how others are inspired about this, too. :)

Here's a slightly edited version of something I posted elsewhere a few days ago:
As someone who listens to more music than I can afford (or want) to buy, I'd pay for an iTMS subscription service. Internet streaming audio offers a reasonable selection of music without cost, but (still like traditional radio) is limited to someone else's broadcast selections. So, the ability to create iTMS playlists (and choose from interesting iMixes), especially for playback during the day while using desktop computers, is pretty compelling to me.

Right now iTMS is losing my business because my budget doesn't justify buying tracks "on a whim" that I may only end up listening to once or a couple times. But if it added a subscription service I'd likely end up buying more, simply because of the opportunity to conveniently and affordably sample and choose more selections that I'm definitely interested in purchasing. I think iMixes might expand into a "legitimate" (and fun) sort of music sharing built around a subscription service rather than something that's currently easy to ignore.

And wouldn't a "cool" iTMS subscription service effectively kill Napster's lame attempt? Done well, I don't understand people objecting to it even if they're personally disinterested.To summarize:

As it is now, being forced to buy/own every track from iTMS that I'm interested or potentially interested in imposes a limitation on its value to me. It also makes some current iTMS features (e.g. iMixes) less interesting than if a subscription service were creatively available for them.

[wrldwzrd89]

The iTunes Music Store doesn't interest me; therefore, a subscription service is of no interest to me either. Simple as that.

[24C]

I don't see a mass market subscription service working, even DVD rental shops are suffering as DVD's come down in price and folks are buying films.
I do think the subscription service might work for niche markets, such as specialised music interests, but after nagromme's post, it would seem it might work as a taster or sampler to get you interested in music store purchases.
However iTunes does samplers already and provides free songs linked to mailshots, so maybe this isn't as valid as I first thought. :confused:
Subscription would work, if you had no music collection you could rip to your mp3 player, and you'd never heard of radio. :eek:

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

The answer has to be no!

Even if the offer seems good at first eyesight those downloaded songs may be very expencive in the long run, say three or four years from now you will have used almost $500, that's a lot of songs that will stop working if you stop paying...

For people who mainly listen to hits (and prefer an iPod to a radio) that only download the current Top 100 and throw most songs away (or at least stops playing them) again after a couple of weeks, this might be an ok deal, though...

[rueyeet]

I would say "maybe" - it depends on how Apple positioned it and what options they offered. I agree. I'd rather buy my music than rent it except in one case: when I regret having bought a song because I didn't have any way to listen to it first enough times to know it wasn't worth buying to begin with.

I see subscriptions as a "preview" thing: Listen to whole bunches of stuff, buy the subset of what you actually like, pay a lot less to learn the difference.

The only problem I have with this scenario is that this is exactly what Internet radio is supposed to be for, and for free to boot. And, as such, it's being sued and legislated out of existence by the recording industry.

The other thing is that the audio from any subscription service can easily be routed through AudioHijack or whatever; somehow I don't think Steve Jobs would put himself in that position after sending those snarky emails to the record companies pointing out the same flaw in Napster-To-Go.

[eems]

i don't know anything about the technical, legal, or business end; but...

if i can buy songs i want to keep (as it is now) &
pay a low flat fee to sample/preview/listen to all the (full) songs i want, then i would be interested.

maybe add a keep-one-song-per-month-of-subscription or something,
or have ur ipod filled randomly (like autofill) from itms or from some subset like celebrity playlists, itunes essentials, new releases, genre, etc. that would be cool. i'd pay $10/month.

[Jovian9]

NO! I want to own my music...not rent it. When I'm ready for new music I'll buy it, either by the iTunes Music Store or most likely a CD. Why would anyone want another monthly bill?

[daveL]

Simply put : No. Actually, if I want new music, I'll buy the CD and rip it. I'm not going to pay near CD prices for 128 kbps encoding. Rent it? Give me a break!