Napster finally offers a reasonable subscription service

I think this is a great value, and I wish iTunes had a similar plan. Although I wish they would have dropped the price of Napster To Go, $5 /mo. is well worth the *hassle* of connecting a laptop to my home stereo. This is also a great way to "try it before you buy it".

@"lotsamystuff" - "The disarray in subscription services is leaving the door wide open for someone to come in and make it simple and compelling." You mean like the Zune service? Yeah...it is simple and compelling. I still think that Apple will be offering a very similar service at some point in the future...even though they did champion the "no DRM" movement. In this case, DRM is not evil...it is used to make sure that you still have a valid subscription. No harm in that, in my opinion. --tayme

"You mean like the Zune service? Yeah...it is simple and compelling." Uh-huh. Simple. Like "Zune Points" http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927638?sd=zune Here's a fun forum post that explains just how "easy" the Zune Points system really is (the convoluted canned cut-and-past response from "Felicity" is priceless): http://forums.zune.net/440287/ShowPost.aspx#440287

funny, I'm a pretty big fan of Zune Pass, horrible marketing/advertising aside. For Zune owners, it's a much better value than any of the two Napster services.

"Services that are region locked to US and Canada are not simple and compelling. They're idiotic. MS in their infinite wisdom have excluded an absolutely massive market." Microsoft doesn't offer Zune Pass in Canada. In fact, it doesn't even have a Zune Marketplace outside of the US. The only real companies offering music stores in Canada are Napster, iTunes, and Puretracks, which labels their service under many different sub-providers, like Bell. Both Napster and Bell offer subscription services. Bell offers it through their Sympatico music subscription store. They also have a separate exclusively-MP3 music store at http://www.inmusicmp3store.ca Then you have Nettwerk, which allows artists to offer full MP3 libraries of their work (if a publisher doesn't disallow it), and most of the MP3 library is carried over from to inMusic.ca because Nettwerk has always "understood" MP3's, and the even back when Metallica was committing "Napstergate", the CEO stood with artists and announced that Nettwerk would never litigate against file-sharers. Canadian's are just cooler that way. :) Plus you have practically every radio station under the sun offering streaming music as well. I usually play radio stations from inMusic.ca in my store, which are offered by CBC Galaxie for free. To sum up: you have the inMusic MP3 Store and the Sympatico Music Store (with subscription, and pay-per-download offerings), both offered by Bell as rebranded services from Puretracks, with content provided by sources which include Nettwerk, while CBC Galaxie (CBC's commercial-free radio service, which offers programming via satellite radio and Bell TV satellite radio channels on TV) offers content for the inMusic.ca streaming radio service. CTV, CBC and MSN entertainment sources provide music entertainment news for the primary inMusic.ca website too. Napster Canada plays the odd man out actually. FWIW, I'm surprised that Bell hasn't leveraged their current content partnership with Microsoft to push the Zune and a Canadian music store for it. I would say that it's because they've already got an established system in place and are looking at capitalizing on a larger audience. The inMusic MP3 store is available for all devices. Meanwhile, Zune Canada is making a name for themselves by partnering with Telus on a number of sporting and new music events and concert series. Being in the west, these concert series will likely see talent scouts from Nettwerk (based in Vancouver, Canada's biggest independent label) pick up new acts on a contract, resulting in national (and potentially international) exposure.

Without getting into the usual Mac/PC or subscription/ownership issues, it seems pretty clear that any music service, be it sale or subscription, that doesn't support the iPod is probably doomed to fail. It's analogous to making iTunes/iPods work with Windows. Apple did that and took over the market. The same logic now applies I think, at least for a few years. And that is basically why Apple can succeed at a subscription service, if they decide to do it, and no one else can. It's also why the amazon music sales, or any other non-DRM music store can compete, because it works with iPods and everything else.

Zune Store isn't available outside the US and its protected WMAs are very limited in what they play on. The Zune software itself only works on some versions of Windows. IOW, it's vendor lock-in, and inferior to having a proper music collection. There's a lot of stupid issues with online music (and media in general) stores, and they need to fix them if they want to lure people off the P2P networks.

"If it doesn't have the Apple logo slapped on it, losta doesn't get it." Kinda like you and MS logos, right Weathorn?

@chuckb84 - "And that is basically why Apple can succeed at a subscription service, if they decide to do it, and no one else can." I agree with the first half of that statement. I would add to it, though, that the same people that are saying subscription services are a terrible idea will be singing their praises when Apple does finally jump on that bandwagon. --tayme

"They either do so in a limited capacity, or have plans to then, because the country choices for Zune Pass are either US or Canada." There is no Zune Marketplace for Canada. Without a music store, you can't have a Zune Pass. When you sign into your Zune/Windows Live ID and it has Canada set as the country associated with it, the marketplace option doesn't show up. You also can't access the Zune Marketplace from an IP outside of the US (same as Hulu, Pandora, most US TV channels that offer free programming, etc.).

"What you fail to realize...or decided not to mention...is that Zune Points do not come into play in the Zune Pass service." It was a comment about the simplicity (or lack thereof) of "The Microsoft Way". It wasn't meant to be a direct comparison. "Your 10 free per month are not stored there, so you do not loose them. That seems pretty simple to me. What confused you about it?" I'm not confused at all, but thanks for the strawman. I did, however, refer you to a thread by a Microsoft customer who IS confused. That's not surprising or unusual, I suppose, but it was (and is) illustrative of the kinds of problems (be their perceived or real) that continue to haunt The Software Giant™. I understand that "lose" isn't spelled "loose". Do you? ;-) "I would add to it, though, that the same people that are saying subscription services are a terrible idea will be singing their praises when Apple does finally jump on that bandwagon." Let me go on record by saying that when Apple does offer a subscription service, I will be among the first to sign up. Right now, there isn't a subscription service that supports the Mac or the iPod, is my platform and player of first preference, respectively. I also predict that such a service will be wildly successful, despite the vast majority of iPod owners (and iTunes users) being Windows users, which will say more about the lack of availability of a compelling easy-to-use service than it does about any supposed Apple fanboi-ism. "mikegalos", "wae-out-in-left-field-thorn" and others will, of course try to spin it otherwise. I may be wrong about all of that, but I doubt it. "Zune Canada" Wow. Two also-rans in the same phrase.

"Myself, I like iTunes for grabbing the odd song here and there. For the most part I buy CD's, rip them and then pass them off to a second hand store." Which is illegal, BTW, making you a thief.

"Which is illegal, BTW, making you a thief." Like Microsoft. Thieves.

"Apple won't let anyone else do a subscription service for the iPod because they won't license the DRM and a subscription service without DRM is meaningless. That's kind of like Microsoft locking Windows so that no rival browser could be installed. Something the company never did." Or, kind of like using proprietary document formats for Office and keeping them secret? Or embedding a browser into the OS and claiming that is was -impossible- to decouple the two? Or forcing all OEM manufacturers to pay a WIndows license for every computer they ship, even if Windows is not installed? Microsoft is a CONVICTED monopolist, repeatedly fined, and still being fined billions for their behavior. This is a fact. Apple has never been convicted of any such thing, and that's a fact also. I think competition is a good thing. Apple and Microsoft should both be held to the letter of the law. The company that has repeatedly violated the law is Microsoft. And, don't forget, Apple has 3% marketshare, so what's the worry?

"Or, kind of like..." So, you agree what Apple's doing is illegal and the company should be convicted for it. One of the reasons you said you wanted to see Microsoft disappear was because of it's monopoly practices. So, have you recently switched to a Linux PC with an AMD processor in the interest of being fair? "And, don't forget, Apple has 3% marketshare, so what's the worry?" Not in the digital music player market, though.

chuckles Wow. You really do like to talk even when you have not a clue about a subject. "Or, kind of like using proprietary document formats for Office and keeping them secret?" First off, there's no law requiring document formats to be disclosed even by a monopoly (and this wasn't even brought up at the trial). Secondly, DOCX, PPTX, XLSX, etc. are all international standards based on XML. "Or embedding a browser into the OS and claiming that is was -impossible- to decouple the two?" And despite trying for over a year with full access to the Windows source code the government couldn't remove IE without breaking parts of the OS. It's called efficiency. Or do you think Microsoft should embed two copies of the same code so that one can be removed and one can run the UI of the OS itself? "Or forcing all OEM manufacturers to pay a WIndows license for every computer they ship, even if Windows is not installed?" Nope. Wrong again. What was offered was a choice of two contracts. One required keeping track of what OS was installed on each machine so they could pay for the licenses sold, the other charged less per copy but charged for all machines sold. Most vendors chose the latter because they were selling virtually all their computers with Windows and it was cheaper for them to not have to keep up the detailed accounting. So, you prefer that they didn't have a choice? But, hey, I figure you never actually read the trial transcripts and just parrot what you've been told.

"At least he's passionate about what he does. That's something that can't be said about some of the others here." Ah. So a Windows evangelist is "passionate", while the Apple equivalent is a "fanboi" or a member of the "iCabal". Got it. Way to be objective, Sharky.

This new Napster offering reminds me of the old Yahoo Unlimited service. Almost the exact same features and price. I'll stick with the Zune Subscription service. I hated the iTunes monopoly virus and Yahoo Unlimited was weak. I really like the software and devices. The Zune service allows me to help my entire family to keep 'legal'. You always hear about the unlimited subscription downloads and the 10 free MP3s each month, but they seldom mention that you are allowed to share the subscription with up to 3 devices & PCs. Nothing comes close.

@LuxZG - "I'm really thinking about boycotting US multimedia companies completely. Not a penny to them untill such services are worldwide." No offense, but when will companies in those countries develop services that are equal to what the US companies offer? Why wait for the US offerings to become available in your country, urge companies where you live to be equal to or better than the American equivalents. According to most of the opinion out there, that would not take much. --tayme

@LuxZg - Like I said, I meant no offense by my statement. Are you so sure that there are not import/export regulations that are stopping these companies from offering their services worldwide...regulations or sanctions imposed by the US or another country? For what it's worth, I completely agree with you and think that these companies would want to market worldwide...where it is legal. But I have no idea if it is legal for them to do so. Peace! --tayme

tayme - do you really think that UK or Germany is a "sanctioned" country? Yet still, no services are allowed to US, Germany, France.. whole Europe.. And they all have export restrictions? Why? Is Britney Spears top secret? Will it give advantage in development of nuclear weapons? Nope.. it's (IMHO) just RIAA that is affraid that this way they'll lose more money. Well, to their notice, all the top albums are already pirated, so they'll either allow me to stream those for 5$ or I'll stream them myself. And again, IMHO, whole not-US world should do the same. Maybe they'd allow us a 5-10-15$ services than in Europe, Asia or Africa Australia et..

gorath "As I understand it, it's not actually IE that was claimed to be impossible to remove, it was the HTML rendering engine (Trident?). " Sort of. The question was could Internet Explorer be totally removed. But, as you pointed out, what they considered as IE included the Trident HTML renderer and some other items that were used in Windows itself. If Microsoft left that part of the code in Windows then IE wasn't "removed". If Microsoft took that code out then all the parts of Windows that used the removed shared components broke.

"Is Britney Spears top secret?" Perish the thought! :P

@tayme - Star Trek - the world of my dreams.. Some marxists (spelling?) would be proud of that future :D @Waethorn - YouTube is partly US only as well. You probably live in US so you don't get that, but quite a bit of official music channels have "US only" content. It's really frustrating when you just want to find and hear a song you heared on the radio or seen on MTV, and it just pops up "not available in YOUR COUNTRY".. several times untill you find one that wasn't censored (yet). I mean, come on, Internet IS GLOBAL, how can you do that? What's next, "this content is not allowed for people of your religion".."your skin color".."your accent".. Why am I worse than others, just because my IP address is different. We should probably do things like that as well. Oh, this traffic comes from US, we won't let it through our cables.. I wonder how much clicks Google would get in that case - globally. Oh, and US or US&Canada is same to me. One country or two.. when there are several hundereds in the WORLD. Yes, I can use anonimizers.. but if I'm going non-legal ways, than I can just download a much better quality from torrents or rapidshare, but than I'm again illegal. As for Britney, hehe.. had to mention someone like that, and who could be better than our "belowed" Britney, hehe :D And as for RIAA, they'll get a nice bill just for entering the same airspace that I breathe in.. on my own rates, and by my own rules :D And than I'll sue them.. just because I think one of their grandma's looked at pictures of town I live in. Hey, it's copyrighted! Well, at least two or three little bits are, who cares about the rest :)

"Good luck on that snakeoil salesman, er, marketing job you got there. " Wae, you have no idea what my job is or what i do. Seriously, you're just embarrassing yourself.