Google Offers Free 4-Month Play Music Trial Subscription to Celebrate July 4th

[Benjamin Frost]

THIS!!!!!

I have a modest music collection (Around 300 CDs, and probably had a good 50 Cassettes), that I purchased over most of my life (i'm 36 now). I used to save my allowance when I was a kid ($20 /mth!) and every couple months take the subway into the downtown core and spend my saturdays in Sam's Record Store, HMV, Tower Records, and about another dozen used music shops.

Its first a shame that kids today won't experience this, as I feel it was something big part of my youth. But, on the othre hand, I look at the money and costs and what you get in comparison today with streaming.

over the course of years, I've probably spent at least $5,000 on all that music.

For $5,000 today, you get over 500 months worth of streaming services. THATS 41 YEARS OF MUSIC on today's streaming services. And all of those services have infinitely better selection than my own collection.

Streaming services are a huge boon for music listeners.

The problem is that streaming services are not sustainable at their current price.

Apple may be able to subsidise it, but it will do great harm to music and musicians in the long term if it has any success.

Consider if we had streaming services since Day One of recorded music. Would we have had such a rich history of music in the last hundred years? No, because no-one would have afforded to record anything, and there would have been no incentive to do so.

If streaming were the only option today, anyone who wanted to make money from new music would not bother. That said, the process has already started. Due to free Spotify and YouTube, it has been very hard to make any money from new music this century, which may account for the low quality of it.

 

[LordVic]

The problem is that streaming services are not sustainable at their current price.

Apple may be able to subsidise it, but it will do great harm to music and musicians in the long term if it has any success.

Consider if we had streaming services since Day One of recorded music. Would we have had such a rich history of music in the last hundred years? No, because no-one would have afforded to record anything, and there would have been no incentive to do so.

If streaming were the only option today, anyone who wanted to make money from new music would not bother. That said, the process has already started. Due to free Spotify and YouTube, it has been very hard to make any money from new music this century, which may account for the low quality of it.

The industry will have to change, I don't think we've seen the final picture. the RIAA has been notoriously resistant to any change of the industry as it means they lose their control.

Musicians don't make a lot of money overall because the bulk of the profits go to the publishers, not the distributors or the artitsts. I look forward to the day when our reliance on dedicated publishing houses is eliminated. Apple did a great job with iTunes at helping usher in the "new age", but we're still al ong away from complete of this change.

The companies like Spotify and Apple music will likely still change as time goes on. And I can see very well that prices go up as it changes, similar how we've seen Netflix and other video streaming services slowly increase in price.

 

[Shirasaki]

The industry will have to change, I don't think we've seen the final picture. the RIAA has been notoriously resistant to any change of the industry as it means they lose their control.

Musicians don't make a lot of money overall because the bulk of the profits go to the publishers, not the distributors or the artitsts. I look forward to the day when our reliance on dedicated publishing houses is eliminated. Apple did a great job with iTunes at helping usher in the "new age", but we're still al ong away from complete of this change.

The companies like Spotify and Apple music will likely still change as time goes on. And I can see very well that prices go up as it changes, similar how we've seen Netflix and other video streaming services slowly increase in price.

All they hurt are customers not themselves so they don't care after all.
They clearly know customers will need their services, be in one way or the other. So they can just play withy customers using whatever method they like, as this does not break the law.
We as customers, are always waiting to be cut and beat to death while we are begging for them to sell services and products.

 

[Michael Scrip]

Changed so everyone just consume everything once and discard them forever.

Miss the old time we feel shocked/impressed/moved/sad/etc when listening to a song.

World is moving on with such a speed no one can anticipate.

Counterpoint:

Remember all the complaining when you had to buy an entire album just to get the one good song you wanted?

Some people saw iTunes, and digital downloads in general, as a great thing.

Thoughts?

 

[Shirasaki]

Counterpoint:

Remember all the complaining when you had to buy an entire album just to get the one good song you wanted?

Some people saw iTunes, and digital downloads in general, as a great thing.

Thoughts?

Thoughts? They are using a kinder way to rape customers, nothing more.
People will blindly pay for something they may have a higher chance to need. Nothing fundamentally different.
If I ever just want that song, I will get it using any other methods possible rather than foolishly throwing money on it.