Decius wrote:
] Hrm... I'm posting this because these were my thoughts upon
] hearing about the Apple service. 99 cents a song is still too
] much money for disposable, low quality MP3s. I'd rather pay a
] flat rate subscription.

First, a nit. The Apple music service uses AAC, not MP3. Apple claims the quality is better, although the WSJ review that I read seemed to indicate they're selling 128kbps tracks. If so, that is pretty lame. Why not 256 kbps? It's still not CD quality, but why skimp on what's nearly-free disk space?

Second, on the business model. I agree that 99 cents is too high. I think they'll pass the threshold for the typical consumer when they offer the latest releases AND an extensive back catalogue for 50 cents per song or five dollars per album. Ultimately, the fee schedule should be progressive. By this, I mean that I should be able to buy the album a song at a time for 50 cents each, over time, and if the album contains more than ten tracks, I get the rest for them for free after buying the tenth.

Like you, I would prefer a flat-rate subscription service. Again, I think that the best way to do this is with a progressive fee schedule. You'd pay 50 cents per song or five dollars per album until your monthly fee reaches the flat-rate ceiling. After that, it's all you care to have.

Of course, some users will try to download the entire back catalogue in the first month and then return only rarely for the new stuff. A reasonable limit to the "all you can grab" flat-rate model might be 720 hours of audio per month, which equates to 24/7 streaming of a single channel for the entire month. For 128 kbps audio, this works out to roughly 40 GB, which would take three days to download in bulk over a 1 Mbps link.

RE: Why EMusic is better then the new Apple service (maybe)