iTunes-Beats Music

Streaming is undoubtedly the future of music, and I think Apple knows this. That's why they bought Beats Music, and that's why we keep hearing rumors about it being included in iTunes soon.

I just don't think they understand why streaming is so popular.

Spotify has 30 million active users, which definitely indicates interest in streaming. But only 10 million are paying users. That means 2/3 of Spotify users are only utilizing the free, as supported version.

Along the same lines, Pandora is the most popular music streaming service (although they legally count as a radio service when it comes to paying musicians…), and this is due to the free nature of it as well.

But the rumors for Apple's Beats Music integration in iTunes have it pegged at being $7.99 a month.

I have two issues with this. One, it's not going to gain much increased traction at that price, because people stream mostly because they dislike paying for music. I get that they want to (need to) make sure that artists are getting fairly compensated for their music, and they don't want to bleed music like Spotify, but I'm just not sure it's going to work. Two, I can still get Spotify Premium on education pricing for $4.99 a month. Is Apple going to have a $3.99 education discount? It's doubtful.

The only solution I could see working for a paid subscription that would actually be relatively popular is having the cost of entry be $7.99/month or purchase of an album on iTunes per month. This method then appeals to users because they get an album even after they stop having a subscription to the service. This keeps iTunes afloat, download numbers up, music rights holders happy, and users satisfied in their expenditure.

Let me know what you think in the comments.