Why a subscription model matters
Monday, March 24th, 2008
Apple has been rumored to be contemplating and negotiating a subscription model for sometime, and I think this would be huge both for Apple and digital music sales in general.
While there are many other services that have some flavor of “subscription” music purchasing (ie allowing the user to pay a flat rate for their music while allowing the download and use of “unlimited” songs / albums), but iTunes has been the the dominant player in a saturate music sales market even without such an option. All of the music and files purchased through iTunes is on a per file basis today, so clearly they don’t need a subscription based system to work.
What I do think though, is that while iTunes is currently the market leader, they can increase that lead today by expanding their potential user set. Currently Apple can only expect people who purchase music to purchase music digitally, which leaves out what I percieve is a large set of potential customers who no longer purchase music, opting to procure it through various illegal means.
As of today, the reasons to steal music rather than purchase license to listen to it include the following:
- According to the number of albums I personally download, would be spending an additional $2,600 a year. This may not sound like much initially, but in my world of personal finance and debt, this would be the difference between making it and breaking it. The largest problem with this is I can’t equate the cost with a monthly bill and make it work with my budget, if it’s a particularly good month for music I could be out $700-800 dollars rather than the $200 I’m suggesting I would average.
- While iTunes has a very, very large collection, I can find anything online for free. That include The Beatles catalog (which iTunes currently does not carry) as well as live sets that weren’t officially released and original versions (rather than reissues) which are sometimes preferable.
My reasons are admittidly limited, but they’re enough, and I’m certain that I’m not the only person out there that finds it easier to forget about copyright law than to pay .99 for a song. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the number of people like me, people who are geeks, with a moderate income and a mortgage, and don’t pay for music because they’re not familiar with the process or aren’t used to it, were a large number.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple finds itself a legion of people who, given the right combination of cost and opportunity, might even be happy to pay for music. I’ve got either up to $30.00 a month, or the price of a new iPod / iPhone / device + $200 on the ready at my end, waiting for the new pricing scheme to work.
So, what is it Apple? Are you ready to take my money? It’s burning a whole in my pocket at the moment.