Cost of living continues to rise · May 4, 04:54 PM
Gas prices are going up, health insurance costs are rising, and apparently so is my subscription cost to Rhapsody Music.
Yesterday I received an email notifying me that my monthly subscription price for Rhapsody was being increased by $3. Maybe that’s not much. An additional $0.10 per day? Sure, you can slice it anyway you want to but it’s still an increase none the less and I haven’t seen any additional services for that $3. So I went online to my Rhapsody account to cancel. Ends up that when you click on the “cancel my subscription” button it just takes you to a page that has a toll-free number to call (which happens to be in India or Pakistan or somewhere overseas).
Of course they asked me why I wanted to cancel my service after 2 years. Was the service lacking? No. Was I not impressed with the ability to download songs? No. Then why did I want to cancel? You just went over my I’ll-Only-Pay-So-Much-For-Music limit. I was willing to pay $10/month to listen to on-demand music from a library of over two million songs and transfer them to my PDA to listen to at my leisure. I am not willing to pay $13/month for the same service.
Besides my own modest collection of MP3s I have last.fm and Pandora to listen to, both of which are free. That should just about satisfy my need to listen to and find old and new music. Besides that, Yahoo! Music offers the same on-demand music service for only 11.99/month (less if you pay quarterly or yearly), plus they have a better player (in my opinion) in the Music Match player. Rhapsody uses RealPlayer which isn’t bad, but seems a bit sluggish.
What about iTunes? some of you1 might ask. Well, I’m talking about subscription services and not a “store” for music downloads. I’m sure if Mr. Jobs gets his subscription service going that it will be very competitive.
In the end I’m glad we live in a capitalist (i.e. competitive) world in which I have more of a choice than Rhapsody or nothing. Gas prices go up and I only have a choice between driving the car or don’t (I ride the bus). Health insurance costs go up and I have a choice of… well… paying those costs or not getting sick? The cost of my (luxury) on-demand service goes up and I still have alternatives. So long Rhapsody, I’m not that loyal.
1 This might be a little optimistic on my part thinking that more than one person actually frequents my little spot on the map of the information highway.
— Steve Harward
Comment
I’m impressed that you’ve stuck with Rhapsody this long. For $10/month you could join emusic and download 30 songs. Sure, it’s only 30 songs, but that’s like 3 CDs a month. After two years, you’d now have at least 720 songs to show for it.
Then again, emusic is hampered by a lack of major-label artists. You can eat your fill of Sufjan Stevens, but you’ll be outta luck for anything that’s ever been mainstream.
Regardless, their 25-song-free-trial is a great deal, and it’s easy to cancel online (no calls to India required). I did the trial, quit, and was later lulled back by an even more generous free offer. I paid one month and quit, easily, online. Total nab: 105 songs for $10. I think I’ve maxed out my legal and moral limit for free songs at emusic, however.
That’s the problem with subscription models: you’re only renting access. That’s my excuse, anyway. Of course I pay for TV (though we’re about to cut that off) and I’ve got less than nothing to show for that: most of the stuff I watch is a literal waste of my time. I am impoverished by using a service I spend good money on. Now that’s crazy.
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