8
« on: April 06, 2006, 03:16 PM »
I know this is an older review, but I still want to comment a little on it. Many of the online music services seem to be using some variation of Napster's subscription model, but I despise it on principle.
To put it in a more real-world setting, it's like I went to a bookstore and they told me I needed to pay them $15 a month to come in. "It's not that bad!" they tell me as they explain that I can take any book I like. Sure, the book self-destructs next month if I don't pay them again, but I can always opt to purchase the book outright for a dollar off the normal prices. As another example it's like my cable company deleting all my video-taped programming if I stop paying my subscription fees. Neither is an example of a service I would choose to use.
iTunes doesn't rate much higher for me due to the DRM preventing me from playing the songs on my Creative Zen player.
I've been using eMusic for the last few months. While their selection is limited to independent releases, their subscription options offer a lot more freedom at much lower prices. For $10/month I get 40 MP3 downloads which never expire and don't care how many computers I put them on. I'm not a Top 40 snob and many of my favorite artists are available here (like Gary Numan, Eddie Izzard, Bad Religion, Flogging Molly, etc...).
It might be time to do a shoot-out review of the available services just to compare their nuances.