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 consumersâ€
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.
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