So, for £40 you want the ability to download every piece of music ever released and own it for ever? Once you've spent your first month downloading everything you've ever wanted, what's the incentive to re-up your subscription the following month? Are you really going to pay that subsequent fee to download a few new releases?
well, the model works for others: millions (or hundreds of thousands) gladly pay a monthly fee of £40 on usenet + rapidshare accounts, and i'm pretty sure most of them renew month after month
I'm not sure what you mean here - are you talking about access to pirated music?
Also, I'm uncertain that millions or hundreds of thousands of people really do pay £40per month for rapidshare/usenet accounts. I'd like to see some evidence for that claim.
>Once you've spent your first month downloading everything you've ever wanted
This only makes sense if you're talking about someone with tragically limited tastes in music. There is no way you could ever listen to "all the music you want" in a lifetime, let alone one measly month.
There is more good new music produced and released in a month than you could listen to in that month, before you even consider the entire history of recorded music that already exists.
Only if you assume people will only download what they can listen to in the time allowed.
I know a few usenet/rapidshare service subscribers, they download more HD movies per month than they could watch if they sat there 24x7 watching them, never mind the amount of music they could download if they turned their attention to it.
Actually, I disagree that there is more good music produced and released by major labels in a single month than you could ever listen to, although I liked the implied condescension of "tragically limited tastes"
And this is essentially a thought experiment - extend it out to a year, where you're downloading 24/7 and what I'm saying holds true. Paying a fixed amount for (legal) unlimited DRM free downloads isn't a model that's going to work.
There is a lot more on spotify than the major labels. And even the majors put out a lot of good music beyond what makes it into the charts.
And it doesn't make sense to consider someone downloading 24/7 because unless you're on dialup, you can download a lot more than 24 hours of music in 24 hours.
However it is clear than the value you get from spotify and similar services is very much determined by your attitudes to music. If you cast your net wide and look for gems from across all styles and niches of music, then it's easily worth it. If you just want to listen to indulge your relatively static tastes in the one or two areas of music that concern you, then its a less obvious choice.
The question is, are there enough obsessive people who are into Music in the wider sense, and have a need for on demand "random access" to any and all artists/genres, to sustain spotify? Because they are the people for whom the service makes sense. People who want to listen to the same 50-100 albums on rotation are unlikely to be persuaded by the pricing model.
PS. Yeah, "tragically limited" was a thoughtlessly flippant thing to say. Didn't mean to be so condescending. Compare it to the attitude of a hacker looking down on someone who doesn't feel the need to learn anything except Java because it "does the job" :)
Having lots of music does not preclude you from discovering more music that you like. Extend it to a lifetime, and in the last year I would still be downloading new music.
Not sure your model works.