{"id":444508,"date":"2010-03-18T19:00:04","date_gmt":"2010-03-18T23:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/?p=106935"},"modified":"2010-03-18T19:00:04","modified_gmt":"2010-03-18T23:00:04","slug":"5-reasons-i%e2%80%99m-still-not-paying-for-a-music-subscription-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/444508","title":{"rendered":"5 Reasons I\u2019m Still Not Paying for a Music Subscription Service"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/gigaom.files.wordpress.com\/2010\/03\/cloud-music-610-350.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\"  title=\"cloud-music-610-350\" src=\"http:\/\/gigaom.files.wordpress.com\/2010\/03\/cloud-music-610-350.jpg?w=300&#038;h=172\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"172\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-107044\" \/><\/a>Music is <a href=\"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/2009\/12\/10\/how-apples-new-music-strategy-reflects-a-paradigm-shift\/\">moving into the cloud<\/a>, right? Access is replacing ownership of albums and song files, online streams are replacing desktop playback and mobile access is <a href=\"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/2009\/10\/08\/for-mobile-music-as-a-service-how-soon-is-now\/\">renewing interest<\/a> in on-demand music subscriptions. Older services such as <a href=\"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/2010\/02\/11\/newly-independent-rhapsodys-subscriber-base-still-shrinking\/\">Rhapsody<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/2010\/01\/06\/napster-ceo-and-president-dismissed-by-best-buy\/\">Napster<\/a> now appear prescient, though they never quite went mainstream, and newer ones such as <a href=\"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/2009\/08\/20\/telecom-mogul-li-ka-shing-takes-stake-in-spotify\/\">Spotify<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/2010\/02\/25\/mog-takes-9-5-million-more-in-advance-of-mobile-launch\/\">MOG<\/a> are attracting big VC dollars.<\/p>\n<p><iframe src='http:\/\/digg.com\/api\/diggthis.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fdigg.com%2Ftech_news%2F5_Reasons_I_m_Still_Not_Paying_for_a_Music_Subscription_Svc' height='82' width='55' frameborder='0' scrolling='no' style='float: right; margin-left: 10px; margin-bottom: 5px; padding: 4px 0 2px 4px; background: #fff;'><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>So how come I\u2019m still not ready to pay for any of them?<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m a voracious music listener, one with varied but quite specific tastes and as such, a large collection of albums and songs in both physical and digital form. After taking several different subscription services for a test-drive, however,\u00a0I found that they provide a good &#8212; but still very flawed &#8212; experience. Here are five reasons why:<\/p>\n<p><strong>There are still significant gaps in the catalog.<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/2010\/03\/17\/all-you-can-eat-music-services-still-dont-have-everything-you-want-to-hear\/\">As I&#8217;ve noted<\/a>, the services may offer all you can eat, but their menus aren\u2019t always complete, and they keep changing. It\u2019s frustrating to pay for a service that doesn&#8217;t have songs you want, and even more frustrating when songs that used to be there aren\u2019t anymore.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I still can\u2019t merge things I own with things I just want to stream.<\/strong> Nearly all music fans have songs in their collections that aren\u2019t on any subscription service. It could be an unlicensed mashup, your friend\u2019s band, the Beatles or Led Zeppelin. But there\u2019s still no subscription service that lets me make a party playlist that includes both <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Beach_House\">Beach House<\/a> and the Beatles. I choose not to own the former, and I\u2019ve got MP3s of the latter, but I can\u2019t have them both side-by-side. (Spotify, for one, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.macstories.net\/news\/leaked-spotify-plays-your-local-music-library\/\">may be working on a remedy<\/a> for this, but as far as I know it hasn\u2019t gone live anywhere yet.)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ownership of music still provides a smoother listening experience<em>. <\/em><\/strong>Try listening to Pink Floyd\u2019s &#8220;The Dark Side of the Moon&#8221; or any live album with applause between songs on these services, and you might start wondering where your CD player is. When the next song doesn\u2019t load fast enough to pick up where the previous one leaves off, you\u2019ll hear an abrupt silence \u2013- a major turnoff during album-length pieces with continuous &#8220;banded&#8221; tracks that run together. When I use iTunes, there\u2019s sometimes an audible seam but no pause, with an option to crossfade; physical formats have no such issues. In this respect, the cloud-based experience can be a degraded one.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I can only share music with fellow subscribers.<\/strong> If playlists are the new mixtapes, as Spotify CEO Daniel Ek <a href=\"http:\/\/ecombiz.biz\/?tag=daniel-ek\">said this week at SXSW<\/a>, I\u2019d like to share them with my friends. In a market as fragmented as music-as-a-service is shaping up to be, playlist sharing won\u2019t be that compelling until we\u2019re all using the same service &#8212; or at the very least, compatible ones. This isn\u2019t as big an issue when there\u2019s a free component, as with Spotify and Rhapsody, but in general, until a critical mass of my friends are subscribing, there will be better ways to share. (I miss you, Imeem. You too, Muxtape.) The MP3 file is very flexible; cloud-based subscriptions still aren&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I can still hear things that I don\u2019t already own without paying for them.<\/strong> I\u2019ve already got a lot of music, and there are still new records I\u2019d prefer to own, and for which I will happily pay. (You might be very different.) \u00a0But I can also hear an awful lot of on-demand free music via both legitimate and legally questionable channels: <a href=\"http:\/\/hypem.com\">Hype Machine<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/lala.com\">Lala.com<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/grooveshark.com\">Grooveshark<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/play.me\">Play.me<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/youtube.com\">YouTube<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/2009\/11\/30\/inspired-by-twitter-blip-fm-tunes-into-customized-stations\/\">Blip.fm<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/2009\/12\/22\/freeallmusic-still-believes-in-ad-supported-downloads\/\">FreeAllMusic<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/beemp3.com\">BeeMP3.com<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/skreemr.com\">Skreemr<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/myspace.com\">MySpace<\/a> and elsewhere. <a href=\"http:\/\/pandora.com\">Pandora<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/last.fm\">Last.fm<\/a> help me discover things through a sort of customized serendipity, while the blogosphere provides curated discovery. Yes, an on-demand subscription gives me more, sometimes in a better-quality experience. But for things I might not choose to own, free options are often still good enough. (Remember, <a href=\"http:\/\/paidcontent.org\/article\/419-sxswi-spotify-ceo-ek-says-spotify-passes-320000-paid-subs-but-mum-on-u\/\">more than 95 percent<\/a> of Spotify\u2019s users think the free version is good enough, too.)<\/p>\n<p>Music subscriptions are improving, and I imagine that most of my quibbles will be dealt with in time. (See my further discussion of the services in <a href=\"http:\/\/pro.gigaom.com\/2010\/03\/comparison-and-ranking-of-streaming-music-services\/\">this GigaOM Pro piece<\/a>, sub req&#8217;d.) But for now, I still view subscription services as supplementary &#8212; not primary &#8212; sources of music, and ones that haven\u2019t done much to change my preference for a hybrid of music ownership and free options.<\/p>\n<p>As I said, I&#8217;m a voracious music listener with varied but quite specific tastes. And if subscription services&#8217; numbers are any indication, there are millions of subscribers out there who are quite satisfied with what they&#8217;re paying for. So I\u2019d love to hear more about how subscriptions work for you -\u2013 or don\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p><em>Post and thumbnail photos <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/2.0\/deed.en\">courtesy<\/a> of Flickr user <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/itchy73\/3867575079\/\">itchy73<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Related content from GigaOM Pro:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/pro.gigaom.com\/2010\/03\/comparison-and-ranking-of-streaming-music-services\/\">Rankings:   Spotify Leads the Streaming Music Scene<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/stats.wordpress.com\/b.gif?host=gigaom.com&#038;blog=1149864&#038;post=106935&#038;subd=gigaom&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"feedflare\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/OmMalik?a=YwF3QruSCUk:KhfBNr34oDM:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/OmMalik?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/OmMalik?a=YwF3QruSCUk:KhfBNr34oDM:V_sGLiPBpWU\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/OmMalik?i=YwF3QruSCUk:KhfBNr34oDM:V_sGLiPBpWU\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/OmMalik?a=YwF3QruSCUk:KhfBNr34oDM:F7zBnMyn0Lo\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/OmMalik?i=YwF3QruSCUk:KhfBNr34oDM:F7zBnMyn0Lo\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/OmMalik?a=YwF3QruSCUk:KhfBNr34oDM:qj6IDK7rITs\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/OmMalik?d=qj6IDK7rITs\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/OmMalik?a=YwF3QruSCUk:KhfBNr34oDM:D7DqB2pKExk\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/OmMalik?i=YwF3QruSCUk:KhfBNr34oDM:D7DqB2pKExk\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/OmMalik\/~4\/YwF3QruSCUk\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Music is moving into the cloud, right? Access is replacing ownership of albums and song files, online streams are replacing desktop playback and mobile access is renewing interest in on-demand music subscriptions. Older services such as Rhapsody and Napster now appear prescient, though they never quite went mainstream, and newer ones such as Spotify and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3797,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-444508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3797"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444508\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}