I know it says “Mac Maineiac” in the byline, but Windows users, as they say in the beer ads, “this article’s for you”. Speaking of beer ads, you may have seen, among the melange of mostly inane advertisements during the Super Bowl (way to go, Pats!), a particular ad announcing the new “Napster To Go” subscription “rent-a-song” service.

To refresh your memory, or if you were “indisposed” or out getting dessert during the commercial (which, by the way, was the “lowest rated” commercial of the whole shebang), the Napster ad contrasted what they claimed to be the $10,000 needed to fill up a 40GB iPod with the ability to download and listen to unlimited music through Napster To Go (we’ll call it NTG from here on) for a mere $14.95 per month. NTG requires Windows XP, Windows Media Player 10, and a “compatible” personal digital music device (we’ll get into those later). It all sounds OK on the surface, but let’s look at some pitfalls of leasing music versus owning it, at least in the NTG model.

With NTG, you certainly do have access to over a million songs, and you can download as many of them onto your computer or personal music player as either can hold. You can also purchase tracks for 99 cents if you want to own them outright, or burn them onto a CD. To listen to the subscription music on your computer, however, your computer must be “online” so the software on the computer can verify you’re still paying your monthly “extortion fees”. If, for some reason, you can’t get online, you can only listen to the music you have purchased (or placed on the computer from your CD collection).

Where NTG differs from just plain ol’ Napster, is it installs software on your portable music player that “times out” after a month if you don’t connect it to your computer (that’s online, of course) to verify you’re still “jake” with the Napster mob. Also, especially for those of you in Georgetown, imagine filling your computer up with gigabytes of music, at 2.5 kilobytes per second. Let’s face it, dial-up users need not apply.

Now, “show me the money”. Companies like Napster, Real, and Microsoft are not pushing this model because people want to pay $180 a year, knowing their music will shrivel up and die the moment they stop paying. They’re pushing this model because it’s more profitable for them than the iTunes Music Store “buy it and own it” model. They know that most people who spend the $180 per year won’t consume anywhere close to $180 worth of music. It’s like a health club making a ton of money charging monthly (or yearly) fees to people who seldom, if ever, use the facilities. And remember, we’re not talking about paying for the music for a few years, then owning it. We’re talking about $15 per month FOREVER (or, until Napster goes out of business again, then you’re really “up Moon River without a paddle”). Again, want to burn songs to a CD for your car? That’ll be an additional 99 cents please.

Let’s talk about players. On the Napster website, they list exactly seven players that are currently compatible with NTG, with one more player and a digital phone soon to come. I looked them all up, and not a one of them is less than $250 (kinda makes that $99 iPod shuffle, which is, of course, not on the list, look better and better, doesn’t it?).

Next time we’ll get back to our discussion of the “dynasty” of digital lifestyle applications: iLife ’05.

© 2005 Peter F. Zimowski