Napster, DRM and subscription music

I've blogged about Napster several times before (just use the search box to find the posts) and clearly it was a bit of a love hate relationship. Love the concept, hated - or at least was frustrated with - the implementation. Well I have to say that as of the 4.1 version which came out a month or two ago it seems Napster really nailed it. Granted I don't use Napster from within Windows Media Player, but the standalone player really seems to work pretty flawlessly now and I love the new "automix" feature. Click any track you are browsing or listening - or a selection of several tracks - then select "Automix" and Napster pulls a really decent selection of other tracks as a play list. So far I've found it spot on and it has introduced me to loads of new artists based on my existing tastes. This is so much easier than manually browsing the "you might also like" selections for each artist and sampling tracks from them. I'm not sure quite what the algorithm is, but it does seem to work well for me.

Anyway, I just read an article on Wired about the author dropping all his subscription music services. Being a journalist who gets to write off such subscriptions as an expense it is mostly about making a statement - and lets him write and article on the statement at the same time. The interesting thing is reading all the comments from DRM h8ters dissing all the comments saying that subscription services are a good thing. For a short while I just didn't understand their point - they just don't understand the value of a subscription service and all they want to do is own music. But who could possibly afford to own all the tracks I listen to via Napster, it would cost a flipping fortune compared to my measly $10 a month subscription (which works for three computers and online from any web browser). And all those 30 second sampling limits the pay-per-track services have - even those DRM free services - that totally sucks. I'm supposed to by something based on listening to 1/6th or less of it, and usually a reasonably randomly chosen part at that. No way!

I mean the subscription service is a well established thing - I'm sure most of these people pay for cable at home so they really should understand the concept. And yet cable is so much more limited as a subscription service than Napster - you don't get to watch stuff when you want to unless you pay for a DVR - which is usually another subscription fee - and you don't really get to pick and choose what you see, the selection is so limited and filtered by advertising and marketing execs who decide what will be profitable for them based on what they think you want to see. I don't subscribe to cable, but if it worked like Napster I probably would, but then Comca$t would want to charge me at least $10 a day for that, probably much more.

Anyway just as I got to writing this I realized it - the DRM haters posting about subscription services sucking (I'll spare you the l33t speak this time) just do all their music sampling the old fashioned way - downloading it from file sharing services, illegally. Because you know, DRM sucks so you have to stick to the man until he gets it by downloading illegally. If you're doing that you can download all you want, listen to all you want, pay nothing and save a bundle. Given that as a modus operandi I guess, yes, DRM must suck. If you really want to feel good about your downloading habits you can "sample" all you want and then buy a track or two from one of the DRM free pay-per-track services like Amazon. If you spend $10 a month on tracks then what is the difference?

Beats me - but tell you what, why not just pay $10 a month for the rest of your life and have access to pretty much everything you want 100% legally and have all the benefits of a service equivalent to last.fm The way I see it $10 a month is $120 a year, or $1200 every ten years or maybe $6000 in my music buying lifetime. I've proably already spent $6000 on CDs in my lifetime and guess what - 90% of them I don't listen to anyway now because my tastes have changed.

To me buying music is just like buying DVDs - why bother, just when you have amazed an awesome and expensive collection of DVDs they change the frigging format for something better and you have to start all over again. I bought about 50 DVDs before I realized that - a cool $1000 at least. Now I just pay NetFlix my $15 a month or whatever it is and I can have pretty much any DVD there is available in my mailbox within 2 days, sometimes less. And you know what - when I bought DVDs I still rented movies from rental stores and that cost me a fortune and was a big hassle. The money I spent on DVDs and rentals would have paid for at least my first 5 years of NetFlix subscriptions - doh! And you know if I really, really, really like something I can still buy it - but you know in the three years I've been doing Netflix that has never happened. And with HD DVD out now I'm really glad it didn't, what a waste any purchase in that time would have been.

So all you DRM haters, open your minds. Do you listen to radio? Do you watch cable? Imagine the two combined with a library of almost everything you ever wanted to listen to. Now imagine that available all the time, on several computers, on your digital audio player, and streamed from any browser. Think about how much Comcast charges you for their piss-poor selection of stuff and divide that by 10 - there, you have Napster. If you don't think it is worth it then so be it - I don't think you'll ever get it. But I know you probably spend more on coffee or beer a month than I'll ever do for music - so ya boo sucks to you! Mohahahahaahaa!