It's still a subscription service people! You are renting your music for 15 bucks a month.

I would like to see a subcription service give unlimited music to go for 15 bucks, but if you want to cancel you're still entitled to your music.

Apple's iTunes model is perfect. It's like going to the store and buying the CD, but your downloading instead. If you don't want to use iTunes Music Store anymore, you still have the right to your music and keep it forever. With Napster's To Go service, you buy 15 bucks a month, if you don't want to pay that anymore there goes your music.

Do the math: Subscription Service = Waste of money.

People need to be educated properly, not tricked into a horrible business model!

Yeah, if you're the kind of person who likes to listen to the same album over and over all month long, then itunes is a great value for you. Buy your hit song and play it till your ears bleed. Then, you probably listen to clear channel radio stations too. If you prefer a more diverse taste in music and like to listen to many different styles and artists, then the Napster subscription model is perfect. I personally love it. I listen to music all day long at work and get to choose what I hear, never having to listen to the same thing twice. I get to check out stuff I would never otherwise hear. It's like being the DJ at your own personal radio station. C'mon people, at least try it... you'll like it.

As a former employee of the reincarnated Napster, I can tell you first hand the company is destined for failure. Its business model is inherently flawed, the profit margins are virtually nonexistent and the "executives" running the place still labor under the delusion that a well known brand will somehow magically attract consumers. The money they just wasted on a Super Bowl ad only reinforces the reality that Napster 2.0 will quickly evaportate into the annals of Internet history.

Rob writes, "Yeah, if you're the kind of person who likes to listen to the same album over and over all month long, then itunes is a great value for you. Buy your hit song and play it till your ears bleed."

Funny, the music industry has been working along the same lines for Primus-knows-how-long now. It doesn't matter if your tastes run to Elvis or Beethoven or Nirvana, people who really like a particular song or performer will want to *buy* that music and play it repeatedly. Whether or not it's once every five minutes or once every five days, it doesn't matter -- "buy it once, play it forever" is a proven sales model.

Apple gets it, Napster doesn't. And neither does Rob.

--R.J.

You don't need Napster to stream music for free. There are tons of free and highly genre-specific Internet radio stations out there. True, you don't get to pick the exact tracks, but it is a wealth of music with no subscription cost (although I do voluntarily donate to one of the non-commercial sites).

The problem with Napster is that if you ever cancel your subscription, they pull the plug on all of your songs, which kills them en masse. That sounds like "hostage-ware" ! You can keep the songs if you buy them, but then you're right where you would have been with iTunes.

This business model doesn't deserve to become a precedent for future business models...I don't want to see any more like it. It should die like the original and similar DiVX did.

"Yeah, if you're the kind of person who likes to listen to the same album over and over all month long, then itunes is a great value for you."

Yeah, those CD things will never catch on. People clearly want their music to disappear forever when they're done paying for it.

I find it very ironic to say the least that the most enjoyable digital music distribution model of all has had to battle relentlessly against 2 highly dissatisfying and overrated models in p2p and itunes. It proves that education is not embraced by people, but rather contested frivolously until people finally see the value in what they are arguing against.

Our society has embraced subscription models in many arenas, but only after the aforementioned haste, and sometimes waiting until our children are keen enough to enjoy what we repel. Every form of communication including the Internet access you are using now is supplied through a subscription service. Not to mention, television, news media, entertainment media, educational media, utilities, credit; all of these things “cost” a monthly fee. It is a payment that cannot be late, or else the things that you want will not be there; they will not work. Refusing to make a payment will result in the termination of services, even if the payments were made every month for many years.

Of course, in many models, there is always the option to purchase the content separate from the subscription. But a steep investment might be necessary, or it may only be a limited supply of content. For example, if I need water, I can always dig a well (huge investment), or buy water at the store (limited supply) if I don’t want to pay the subscription fee.

Needless to say all costs are out the door if the content is stolen, and this is a reality for many service providers. Cable television is commonly stolen, as is electricity and Internet access. Magazines and newspapers are stolen from doorsteps, credit is stolen and used without authorization. Heck human identities are being stolen as we speak on the Internet. But what you get when you steal is limited to what you can get access to, and the quality is never as good. Often what you steal is not what you expected it to be, or it is broken. Plus you risk criminal prosecution if you are caught which has historically kept the majority from getting too serious about theft.

The inherent value in the Napster service is the reason it is worth a subscription fee to many people. The ability to stream music of your choice continuously in your home or on the road is something that many of us enjoy. The older crowd has been forced to purchase a limited supply of music over time because this was the only option for them. But for younger people and those that don’t have a thousand CDs or stolen mp3s, the service can give you what would take years and thousands of dollars to accumulate…instantly! Would I like to spend ten years buying songs and CDs and then owning them forever? Not really. I’d rather have it all now! And pick and choose what I really like to keep forever. This is what the service offers. If the songs stop playing when I cancel, so what? If I like them that much I’ll buy them, just like you do, for the same exact price.

I think they need to drop the Naptser name and fast. every tie I hear napster i think of how think RIAA is brutally suing the nation and being all around jerks. Napster was the first step in what is now going on. so i dont understand why these people think that those that were once loyol to napster are going to still embrace it after it bacame a part of the very conglomerate it was made to stick it to.