I was watching CNN this morning and during the 'Your Money' segment of the program, there was a discussion about whether or not the online giant Amazon.com will be releasing a Digital Music Store
and MP3 player later this year. On the program (Robin & Company) they mentioned that Amazon.com might even give away some of its MP3 players to some of their long-term customers. Apparently, the music store would charge $15/month for unlimited downloads - and although they didn't mention it, I'm going to take a stab in the dark and suspect that it would be much like Yahoo! and Napster where you lose your "rights" (and thus, listening priveledges) to the music you downloaded if you ever skip a month's payment. I realize this doesn't make much sense and the prospect is quite bizarre, but it's definitely something to consider. Unfortunately, it sounds like a rip-off of the Yahoo! Music Engine and Napster, so I highly doubt it would attain the widespread popularity that iTunes has accomplished.
The end of the segment was nauseating, though. The reporter kept touting the fact that it would only cost $15 a month for unlimited downloads, while iTunes charges $.99 per song. She forgot to mention the entire fact that if you download a song from iTunes, you physically own it - while with these subscription-based systems, you're just "renting" the song until you stop paying the monthly fee.
I couldn't find the link via CNN.com oddly enough - but I did find this article from last year talking about
the same thing, minus the MP3 player.
Honestly, I think both ideas would tank in the real world. I, for one, wouldn't want to be walking around with an MP3 player that was manufactured by an online discounter like Amazon. To me, it would seem to be more of a "freebie" item to give away to all their loyal customers rather than an actual money maker for the company. And with all the patents Apple has for the iPod, it would be hard to make anything that came anywhere near the iPod - it would just be another Creative Zen player. Personally, I think it's too late for them to "enter the ring," so to speak.
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