Our Service Trap Better Than Apple's Hardware Trap, Says Napster
from the splitting-hairs dept
Napster’s president says Steve Jobs and Apple have “tricked people into buying a hardware trap” since songs bought from iTunes can only be played on the iPod. It’s a “my DRM is better than your DRM” argument, which is pretty pointless, but apparently Napster’s service trap, where users have to keep paying $15 a month to be able to listen to anything from it, is preferable because owning music doesn’t “benefit” people. Right — because owning music without any restrictions and being able to play it on any device is something that no consumer wants. Keep in mind Napster’s the company that tried to make out Apple wasn’t a competitor, but with just 410,000 users, it looks like people aren’t buying into renting music.
Comments on “Our Service Trap Better Than Apple's Hardware Trap, Says Napster”
No Subject Given
I buy songs from iTunes, burn them to a CD, then rip the tracks back to my PC and load them on my MP3 players. A tad inconvenient but hardly problematic.
Re: RE: Hardware Trap?
If Napster is so worried about a hardware trap where’s their Mac support? The lack couldn’t be anything to do with the fact that they’re also locking you into Micro$hits format trap ? Yes I know fairplay is also proprietary but AAC itself is an open standard and you just know that if WMA had the same hold on the market they’d be getting all draconian with ‘untrustworthy computing’. I don’t think Apple would bother with DRM if the lables didn’t insist because they simply have the best product from front to back, portal to player.
Napster users
Hi,
Napster might only have 410,000 subscribed users – but don’t forget that those 410,000 are paying $15 a month, every month. Steady reliable income.
How many iTunes users do that? A Napster subscriber is worth more than an iTunes buyer I would have thought.
Best regards
Steve
Re: Napster users
Apple sells about 1.5 million songs a day. I’ll take 45mil over 6mil per month anytime.