Former Beats Execs Jimmy Iovine and Trent Reznor Leading Development of Apple's New Music Service

malexandria said:

Yeah because that extra $1 a month to have access to millions of tracks and full albums with ability to download a large chunk of music to your device for offline play, is just so draconian. People are just NEVER satisfied and too damn cheap. Expect everything to be free or .99 cents.

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I think you're missing my point. I'm not saying that Spotify isn't worth $10/mo, that I'm not satisfied with the service, or even that it ought to be cheaper. What I'm saying is that the perceived savings from $10 to $9 would significantly outweigh the real savings.

Take, for example, how common goods are priced at $3.99 or $49.99 instead of $4 or $50, respectively. It's an age old marketing tactic to appeal to consumers on price without really losing revenue. Thing is, we're pretty used to that so I think it isn't as effective as it used to be. And in fact, it's so common, that deliberately pricing products on the whole dollar implies a sense of luxury. Kind of weird, right?

So to bring it back around to my point... If I'm choosing between a $9 service or a $10 service, I'm more likely to choose the cheaper one because the perceived value is artificially inflated. However, if I'm choosing between a $9 service or an $8 service, I feel I would be more apt to choose based on quality of service than cost alone. Y'feel me?

Razeus said:

The prices are simply too high, imo.

I'm willing to pay $5 a month via student discount, but I balk at $10. I'm will to meet half way at $7

Plus on Spotify I still have to sync my local stuff that they don't have (Tool, The Beatles, Thom Yorke, Radiohead's In Rainbows, a lot of old school hip-hop albums that still aren't available for purchase nor download, etc.) so I STILL have to keep iTunes around, effectively forcing me to use 2 softwares to manage music. No thank you.

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Are you kidding? High compared to what, pirating? Back before Spotify a single new CD cost me something like $15 on a good day, $10 on iTunes. $10 a month to be able to listen to anything you want at 320kbs whenever you want is pretty dang reasonable.

I better see an option for lossless streaming.

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Don't hold your breath. No streaming service provides this. And until lossless compression improves quite a bit, it's not going to happen.

hemanwomanhater said:

re. Lossless:
Don't hold your breath. No streaming service provides this. And until lossless compression improves quite a bit, it's not going to happen.

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Tidal was just re-released last week, which does. So really you don't know what you're talking about.

hemanwomanhater said:

Are you kidding? High compared to what, pirating? Back before Spotify a single new CD cost me something like $15 on a good day, $10 on iTunes. $10 a month to be able to listen to anything you want at 320kbs whenever you want is pretty dang reasonable.



Don't hold your breath. No streaming service provides this. And until lossless compression improves quite a bit, it's not going to happen.

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There is a huge difference between people who consumed music pre-1999 and post-1999. The former knows what it's like to pay for music and understood why they should still do so and how insanely good of a deal $10/month is. The latter have never HAD to pay for music. They've always had the option of stealing it, so it's hard for them to comprehend paying even for unlimited streaming. It's quite maddening. I don't get it, but I "get" it.

hemanwomanhater said:

Are you kidding? High compared to what, pirating? Back before Spotify a single new CD cost me something like $15 on a good day, $10 on iTunes. $10 a month to be able to listen to anything you want at 320kbs whenever you want is pretty dang reasonable.



Don't hold your breath. No streaming service provides this. And until lossless compression improves quite a bit, it's not going to happen.

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Ok. So have fun with a service you're willing to pay for. Why criticize me?

a0me said:

Is there anything preventing you from downloading the tracks you've bought on iTunes and burn them to CDs, back them up on your hard drive and to a third party online storage?

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Yes. m4p. And "burning to CDs"

Luckily, much of my recent purchase is m4a.

jimthing said:

Tidal was just re-released last week, which does. So really you don't know what you're talking about.

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That's fair, and honestly I hadn't heard of Tidal before reading your comment. That said, I also don't think the lossless subscription is really going to catch on for a large number of people, at $20/month. It's already tough enough getting people to pay $10/month, as the post I was replying to indicates. Nice to have the option if you're willing to pay and have a phone with a lot of storage, though.

What I can see happening is in a few years some larger service might make a push to go lossless without charging more and then the others will work to catch up... but I also truly believe that, for now, they don't really see the need to do that. Most people can't tell the difference between lossless and high quality mp3/ogg, and don't care.

Anyways, good on Tidal for being the first to go there. Hope lossless does catch on sometime in the near future.