The Yahoo! Music Service

Yahoo launched their subscription based music service this past week without much fanfare and has been getting rave reviews. At a $5 monthly subscription rate (if you pay for an entire year up front - $60), you can download as many songs as you like from a database of a million songs to your computer or portable music player. The songs will continue to play as long as you pay Yahoo! your monthly $5 dues. I picked up this quote from Walt Mossberg's article to highlight what might become my reason to switch to the Yahoo! engine:

"So if you have a spare $60 this year, you want to try renting music, and you don't have an iPod, Yahoo is the way to go. If you love your iPod and want to collect music whose longevity doesn't depend on paying a subscription fee years into the future, stick with Apple."

I have a lot of music currently that I'd listen to time and again. I also have music that I can't stand anymore; it just sits on my hard-drive because space is no longer a concern for me. Don't get me wrong, I did like the songs that fall into the second category when I first heard them but the songs just lacked replay value and got annoying. This is so true of music these days, especially given my shortened attention span (and that of the people I know).

Which is why the subscription model will win this war, or at least that's what I predict. And what is $5 - 2 lattes? I sure can afford to spend that much every month to get the latest crop of music that's out there on my machine and my iPod-knockoff. Out of all the new tunes I rent, if I really like a couple, I can buy them for $0.79 each or download them from a friend. It's a win-win.

But wait, I have an iPod - these songs don't work on iPods. Damn realizations...