Saul Hansell brings up a great point in this cool post in the New York Times this morning about Apple and subscription music.
Apple doesn't have a subscription service for music. Why not? At Macworld Jobs announced a test of the subscription model with videos. Why not with music?
Maybe they think subscription price might be a big leap in price from the pay-per model. Doubtful.
Maybe they feel like people want to own their music, and subscription model suggests that your collection can be taken away. Could be.
I think Saul's rationale makes a lot of sense: Apple just hasn't done it yet, and if/when they do, people will adopt it because Apple is cool and iTunes is cool and iPhones are cool and people want to be cool. People haven't emotionally accepted the model yet - they need someone to lead them into it and frankly Rhapsody and Yahoo! Music are great but they're no iTunes in breadth of catalog or in perception of "the cool".
I don't think that going subscription with video makes doing it with music a slam dunk though. Videos are generally one time experiences, similar to books. You read (watch) because you want to see what happens or you want to learn something. You generally don't watch more than once unless it's something really special (I've seen Shawshank Redemption 10 times).
Music is a little different because you listen to it many times. People don't buy music to listen to it once and never listen to it again (it happens but it's not their intention when they buy... and with all the previewing options out there this happens less often than it used to). Music is more likely to be a repeat usage product than video, so the idea of paying for it and then having it taken away stings a bit.
Come on Apple, make music subscriptions cool.
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