Digital Audio insider had an article up about Renting and Owning music. I wrote some comments on the site that basically say no, I don’t see it happening. People have been saying this since Napster was out. Heck, Rhapsody has been offering this for a long time…..streaming music. Pandora has been doing it for a few years. And now everyone is excited that Spotify (what a stupid name….as stupid as FaceBook…ugh) is in the US. Renting your music just has never taken off.
I certainly don’t see it happening now that AT&T, and Verizon have capped data usage on mobile devices. Oh, but the proposed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile will fix that right (Bullshit!). And they all now cap your internet usage at home (Time-Warner & U-Verse is capped at 250 gigs a month and so are others). So….that is another hurdle for streaming to contend with.
Basically, I like free things that let me FIND music I like. Like Pandora or a PodCast. I LOVE PodCasts. Single best way to find new albums or even hear great things for free.
Then I will buy that song for $0.99 and own it. No re-occuring monthly fee. It’s mine.
The Convergence of Owning Music and Renting Music:
image by TheTruthAbout via Flickr
Earlier in the week, Hypebot pointed to this eMarketer summary of two recent studies about consumer attitudes about owning music vs. renting it:
The first of the two studies was a survey conduced by Insight Research Group on behalf of eMusic that revealed the widely noted insight that 91% of those polled preferred to own music rather than subscribing to it.
There are real differences, both logistical and psychological, between owning and renting music. But I’ll bet that the preference for ownership will decrease as the listening experience for “owned” and “rented” music converges. If you’re using a website or app to listen to music on your computer or portable device, where the files are coming — your hard drive, your cloud drive, or the server of a music subscription service — doesn’t have much effect on your listening experience. And a year from now, even more people will be using Spotify, iTunes Match, Amazon’s Cloud Player, Google Music, and other services to listen to music. The more they do, the more willing they’ll be to forgo actual ownership.
(Via Digital Audio Insider)