Apple iTunes may offer Monthly Subscription?

Apple iTunes which was launched in 2003 has been tremendously successful as a media store. Until today, if you had to buy music from iTunes, you had to either buy single song or the album, but rumors say a monthly subscription model is on its way.

Rival music stores like Yahoo Music, Rhapsody and Napster already offer subscription, but they couldn’t copy the success. Analysts have to say that subscription model didn’t work for others because the dominating iTunes didn’t offer such subscription.

Phil Leigh, a senior analyst working for Inside Digital Media says: “The number one factor retarding the acceptance of the subscription model is the dominance of Apple. The idea of subscribing to music is new to most consumers so when the dominant player doesn’t talk about it, the idea seems out of the mainstream for most consumers”

True, but it’s still a rumor which comes from Les Ottolenghi, CEO of INTENT MediaWorks, a digital distribution system that works with peer-to-peer networks. If Apple had any such plans, why would they disclose it to Les Ottolenghi?

From a music lover’s point of view, I’m against the subscription based service because once you have the album or the music, it will be yours only until you keep paying the monthly subscription charges. If you stop, you’ll lose all the music.

Subscription model for music just won’t cut because it can’t be implemented on iPod and we all know that the success story of iTunes lies behind iPod. For videos, it will work because rarely few of us watch movies more than once and in conjunction with Apple TV, it would possibly work.

This post was published by on April 13, 2007

About the Author: Thilak Rao works as a Social Media Expert. He is one of the first professional bloggers from India, and he loves to write, travel and click photos. Follow him on Twitter @thilak

  • http://everydayspace.blogspot.com/2006/10/data-entry-jobs-is-huge-earning.html Linu

    Will it be an affordable price?

  • Kimberly

    I don’t know if I’d do this for music, but if I could subscribe to iTunes TV shows. I would love to cancel my cable subscription, and pay for access to all the iTunes shows. I’d definitely pay a premium for these commercial-less downloads.

    Although, I’d have to see what other services come online. The internet TV space (or what Shelly palmer calls “over the top” delivery) is definitely heating up. Joost is just as exciting as iTunes TV.

    Now, about those subscriptions.

    - Kimberly

  • http://www.noinput.net/?p=1244 noinput.net | plug it in » Blog Archive » Wi-Fi iPod On The Way

    [...] has released just enough detail to get the geeks talking. Along with this news, there is talk of a subscription base to iTunes. I agree with the majority here on this being a bad idea. It would make sense that they need to [...]

  • tiffany

    I don’t understand what they mean by it not working with ipods. with napster it works with mp3 players right? all apple would have to do would require the new monthly service to only work with new ipod products and/or updated ones.

  • jeremy

    If it was a subscription service where you pay a certain amount to have unlimited downloads, then I’m all for it. I collect music, and it would save me money to pay $20 a month, then go on the store and download all the songs I wanted. I’ve heard rumors that it will be unlimited downloads for a monthly fee. The only problem is that the record companies will never go for it, and it’ll probably never happen.

  • matthew

    my friend just told me the other day that theres going to be a subscription soon for $14.99. Hes a huge geek and gets everything right 9/10 so its probally going to happen