Listen, I’m going to be honest here. I don’t get why everyone is freaking out about Apple possibly introducing a subscription model service to iTunes like it’s the next freakin’ coming! This isn’t by any means an original idea here, and I’ve been using a service similar to that for years now. In fact the fact that iTunes does not HAVE a subscription service is the main reason why I’ve never purchased an iPod, and i recommend to anyone who asks that no one should! But the way the pundits have been spinning this story, you’d think that they have never heard of the idea before and that it came flying out of the great Steve’s brain and shot directly into their withered jaded hearts.
But let’s start at the beginning, shall we?
In 2006 I wanted to pick up an MP3 player. I wanted to be honest about it. I didn’t want to go the Limewire/BitTorrent route. But the thought of paying 99c a song or the thought of endlessly ripping, tagging, and organizing cds were both PAINFUL thoughts to me. Has no one ever done the math that if your iPod is purchased empty, and it can theoretically hold 10,000 songs, that it means that it will cost you $10,000 to fill it? Let that thought sink into your head for a moment.
TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS. Of MUSIC! I dont know about you, but I’d rather put down that rather hefty sum towards the down payment on a car.
(edit: A commenter fairly noted that it’s only $10,000 if you buy songs at 99c each. Fair Enough.)
But I’ve gotten off on a tangent.
I wanted to be honest about my music purchasing, but I didnt want the cost or the hassel. So I did a bit of research online, and found a vaguely iPod like music player called the Creative Zen Sleek:
Sure, apple had just released the iPod Photo, and this was still stuck in monochrome land, but it had a good price point, 20 gigs of space, FM radio, and a mic for recording. Not to mention that for a non-apple engineered device it was pretty slick! Slick to the point that people were asking me if that was the new iPod, and where could they get it.
But that wasn’t the best part. It came with trial cards for both Audible (which i LOVE by the way) and the newly reincarnated (at the time) Napster to go. So I gave both of them a try. Audible was obviously awesome, and surprisingly so was this new Napster. I put a $14.95 charge on my debit per month, and I got access to any music I wanted. The catalogue was HUGE, and had just about everything I could want. The little things it did not have, I had on CD anyway. There were no issues of tagging or organizing songs, I just clicked the album I wanted, and dragged it to the player. The software took care of the rest.
Before you know it, I had literally THOUSANDS of songs on my player. And I was listening to music I had never heard before, because I wasn’t afraid to lose money checking out a new recommendation from a friend, only to find out I didn’t like it. I also took to strolling the Napster store for new or interesting things, and I found some bands that will stick with me the rest of my life. Bands I would have never heard if I had an iPod.
I saw many of my friends walking around with iPods with maybe 100 or 200 songs on their 30gig iPods, and here I am with my Zen full to the brim, to the point where I had to take songs OFF so that I could load new ones. Unfortunately the Napster store didn’t integrate with Audible, or have podcast support, but this being my first real mp3 player, I didn’t care. It went wherever I went.
The negative press surrounding the subscription services surprised me. People were complaining about “renting” music, and about how if you stopped paying, you lose it. Have you ever thought about the fact that if you stop paying your cable or internet bill you lose those too? I’m quite sure that if your ISP changed to a 99c a megabyte plan you’d get pissy REAL QUICK. But I digress.
Cut to 6 months ago. the hard drive on the player finally died after my dropping it one too many times. I was again in the market for a new player. I knew i wanted something that played video. And i KNEW that I wanted a subscription device again. So after much deciding I purchased a $120 White Zune (now called the Zune 30) from Woot! because it was the best deal I could find at the time.
I had to give up my Napster account, and move over to the Zune marketplace, but the switch was OK and the store had the same music more or less that Napster did, so I got up to speed pretty quickly. Unfortunately the Zune for some asinine reason, does NOT have Audible support, so I had to get into burning my books to CDs to listen to in the car. Which to be honest works alright for me. But the 2.0 firmware brought something with it that changed everything for me. Podcasts! My god what I had been missing. This was one thing from the iPod side of things that I was incredibly happy to finally get access to. So once again I filled up my Zune, and went about my business enjoying life.
Until last week.
I go doing my usual blog run online, checking out all the major ones, and everyone is running at the mouth about how the iPod may be doing a subscription service and how WONDERFUL it is. These are the same bloggers and pundits that were SLAMMING services such as Zune, Napster, and Rhapsody.
So just because Apple does it, it’s automatically better? Sure, there are some positive aspects in those rumors, like the fact that Apple wants EVERY SINGLE SONG on iTunes to be available for subscription, or that it may come free with the device for a period of time. Sure! These are good advancements to the model, but let’s not pretend that this hasn’t been done before anywhere else. You people could have been doing this for years now just like me! But you just HAD to have your shiny iPods. Nothing else would do.
Now sure don’t get me wrong. If this does happen, AND at some point the iPhone is opened to other carriers other than AT&T you better believe I’ll be buying one. The prospect of reducing the number of devices i’d have to carry would be a big help. Not to mention that the thought of downloading straight from the device would be pretty damn neat, AND I could have my Audible support back! But I swear I’m going to scream if at the next Jobs-note Steve announces this like it was his grand idea from the start to do this, and that its awesomely-amazing, and never been done before.
You’ve had a choice all along, stop following status symbols. You don’t wanna be that person who looks at a picture of themselves from 30 years before and says ” What the hell was I thinking? “
But for all of those who do indeed celebrate. I wish you all the best of family and friends and food, and hope you all have a fantastic day.