Yet again, we find the moniker attached to some piece of vaporware coming down the pipe, this time in the form of a music store / player combo by online sales giant Amazon.
FEBRUARY 16, 2006 (IDG NEWS SERVICE) – Amazon.com Inc. plans to launch its own Internet music service to rival Apple Computer Inc.’s iTunes Music Store, The Wall Street Journal reported today, citing unidentified sources.
The world’s largest online retailer also plans to sell its own branded portable music players and a subscription service that would offer deep discounts and preloaded songs to users of its music players.
Amazon could not immediately be reached for comment.
The company is in advanced talks with four global music companies about a digital music service that could be launched as early as this summer, according to the report. With its history of selling CDs online and its huge customer base, Amazon could pose a formidable threat to Apple’s domination of the online music business.
Yawn. It could. Just like Sony “could.”
Let’s face one reality here, and it’s a cold one that Napster is still choking on. People don’t want to subscribe to their music.
When I buy a song from iTunes, I own it. All 1600 songs I’ve bought from iTunes over the past 2-3 years are mine. Subscription services are great if you want to rent everything you own and maintain paying monthly for a song for years into the future. And if the company you’re “renting” from goes under?
Tough. You lose everything.
Sounds great, doesn’t it?
Yet again the “iPod killer” moniker is attached to something (Consumerist’s headline) that’s nowhere near it.
[tags]itunes, amazon, ipod[/tags]