Yahoo Music Unlimited Reaches Its Limits
Feb 4th, 2008 | By James Lewin | Category: Digital Music, General 
Music subscription services have, by and large, bombed. The idea of renting music hasn’t taken off and, even worse, customers have to worry about the services’ futures.
The latest example of this comes with Yahoo’s subscription music service. On Monday, the company announced that it will discontinue its Yahoo Music Unlimited subscription service and has instead struck a deal with RealNetworks’ Rhapsody service:
Beginning in the middle of 2008, Yahoo Music Unlimited subscribers will be guided through an in-browser process to convert their music libraries to Rhapsody’s service. For a limited time (length unknown), they’ll be able to keep paying Yahoo’s subscription fees, which cap out at $8.99 per month, before being required to start paying Rhapsody’s $12.99.
Anything could happen with the service, though, given Microsoft’s hostile takeover bid for Yahoo.
You hear the pundits (probably paid by the RIAA) that keep telling us it’s such a good deal to subscribe (aka “rent”) music versus pay per download, but I have yet to meet someone who actually justifies paying 12.99 per month and getting what amounts to nothing in return.
Eric