Luring listeners to subscriptions?
Interesting piece on the subscription business model, questioning whether listeners that have grown accustomed to the iTunes pay-per-download business model will eventually also dig rental services like Yahoo’s music store.
Granted, changing consumer behavior — renting, not buying music — will take time, while
it’s hard to make money on new types of subscriptions […], at least at Yahoo-like prices
and
Compatible players will have to get a whole lot cooler before people start buying them. Says Jupiter Research analyst David Card: “There’s only one device that matters, and you can’t use it with Yahoo’s music service.”
Well, these are introductory prices, they may go up when Yahoo has gained a foothold in the market …
The other point, the iPod-factor, in my mind completely misses the mark. Sure, the iPod is popular and it doesn’t work with existing subscription services, but never mind, it is not the all-governing center of all peoples lifes, nor is it the cornerstone of home-stereos … broadband-connected home stereos that can tap into a huge backcatalog via a (streaming) subscription service look much much smarter …
read the referred article over at BusinessWeek
