CrunchGear

I have had a 3-month zune pass for a little over 2 months now, and I hope apple enters that market to drive down prices… as of right now- i dont plan to renew… not worth it.

I am a subscription based person. First I had Urge, then rhapsody and now Zune. It works and you don’t have to worry about losing songs you paid for…HD crashes…backups for music…old music you don’t care about anymore.

We have a small child and I can load up a zune add external speakers and they can have hundreds of albums at their finger tips…all for 15 bucks a month.

If Jobs goes subscription I want to hear why as the snob has brushed us off for years.

I’m an ownership guy all the way. For me “subscription” music is the radio and no, not that satellite stuff either. Also, I own all my music by buying physical media and ripping to electronic, thus no DRM nastiness.

I’m an ownership kind of guy. It’s probably because I’m so materialistic. But I buy all of my stuff on CD for the most part anyway. I love the scent of all that carbon.

I’ve never bought a song online because there are just too many compromises involved. I buy anything I really want to keep on CD, DRM-free and gloriously uncompressed. I have an online subscription (first Napster, now Zune) for convenience and it’s great for trying out new tracks and new artists to see if they will “stick” in my playlist long enough to be worth buying the CD.

You know you can do both right? Keep a subscription so you get access to a wide breadth of music and then pony up the additional cash to keep it forever.

I’m surprised anybody would pay for an online music subscription, with great free services out there like Pandora. Its taken a while, but the system works well enough to have built a fairly diverse catalog. All in all, I enjoy about 95% of what it plays now.

As for buying music, I tried it for the first time a few months ago with iTunes. Quickly got sick of having to authorize each computer I put it on (work computer, home PC, home laptop, etc.). After about six purchased tracks I switched to Amazon, and I highly recommend this service. If you install the small program, it streamlines everything for you just as well as iTunes (which is a much larger, RAM intensive program), and no DRM. And cheaper prices. I’m surprised more iTunes users haven’t switched over to this.

So, as of today, Pandora has introduced me to about twenty or so new bands I really enjoy, most of which I’ve grown to like well enough to purchase their music. I can’t speak for any of you, but when there’s a free service out there which I’m completely happy with, I’m not about to pay to get it elsewhere. I suspect this is why satellite radio hasn’t become more popular, although I admit I’ve had Sirius for about three years and love it (and would make the argument there is a huge difference between terrestrial radio and Sirius).

But hey, if the market supports it and there’s a profit to be made, Apple will eventually jump in.

I love the subscription model. I use Rhapsody which also works with my Sonos system at both my homes, and runs on my HTC Touch phone.