Neowin.net

...and the 192kbps part. I'd rather they let me choose what bitrate I want it at.

Yeah, but a smart customer would burn his downloaded music to CD right away, so that if he decides its a crap service he wouldn't lose what he's already paid for when he decides to cancel a month later.

(The above could also be a she)

I was actually suprised by the 192k bit, its not what I would like but iTunes is only 128.

It all sounds pretty nifty until the Yahoo! part.

What's wrong with Yahoo? I'm not going to sign-up or anything but I bet it easily surpasses Real since it has a better price point, built in user base and probably less intrusive and bloated software.

This is the first store that isn't the same price subscription wise and some people would like the Janus side of things allowing unlimited transfer to a portable device without paying per song. Also from what I see all songs are 79 cents a song even if you don't have a subscription which is cheaper and better than iTunes so I guess having more than one store actually allows lower prices. Also until Yahoo Music came around unlimited subscription services were no less than 10 bucks a month and before Yahoo Music came along unlimited transfers to a portable device without paying per track costs about 13/month with Rhapsody and 15/month with Napster and now we can get the same plan with Yahoo for 5 bucks a month.

What I said above just proves how wrong you are and that having many companies makes prices cheaper on both downloads and subscription plans compared to your iTunes service. Also keep in mind I'm a mac guy but I'm not going to sit here and think that there isn't a real market for this and that maybe something can be better than iTunes. Hey maybe if other services take marketshare from Apple than maybe just maybe they might support other players beside the ipod or heaven forbid maybe charge 79 cents a song instead of 99 cents a song.

Also don't complain about Microsoft crap DRM because last time I checked Apple DRM could do the same as Microsofts DRM which isn't much as far as the users control of music.

I see your point on the price, but the difference between 79 cents and 99 cents really is minimal, and if you think about it, the difference is coming out of Yahoo's profit margin. If they don't make a profit, then the store won't be around very long, which in turn means that anything you rented (using the subscription model) from them will be lost. I'd much rather pay a little more if it meant making sure that the store was around in the future.

I never said anything about the DRM, did I? Why accuse me of complaining about it?

Yahoo isn't the first to go with a lower price, Wal-Mart's store charges 88 cents per song. What's really funny is that they have started selling iPods now, which won't work with their store! I wouldn't want to be working in the electronics department there trying to explain to clueless customers why the iPod they bought won't work with Wal-Mart's music store.

I see what your saying but nothing is going to be free. Now I know your not saying this but remember that subscription plans are being marketed for a different group of customers. This is no different than a customer who will rent a DVD while they won't order HBO because their HD channels sends movies that aren't OAR. That doesn't mean that their isn't a real market for HBO HD but that specific customer isn't being targeted for this service.

Now in my case I've used Napster To Go, Rhapsody To Go and Yahoo Music To Go and right now they seem to be the same for me so price is the winning factor. Now with all that said I'm more into Columbia House where I can get full quality CDs without DRM for about 5 bucks including S&H and my plan doesn't send stuff out every month.

Right now I've got Buy One Get 4 Free which is good for me. Also I get bonus points for everything I buy so if my highest priced selection costs me 18.98 I get 38 bonus points just for that order and 75 gets me a free CD if I pay my almost 3 bucks shipping and tax cost. Right now I have over 1,000 bonus points. I also love to buy the newer DVDs so I can buy them for 20 bucks at Columbia House and get 4 free CDS which is a great deal for me because I end up buying the DVDs either way. Even best buy and those stores aren't more than 4 bucks cheaper for the DVD but try getting those stores to give you four free CDs for about 7 dollars more than their DVD itself. Hey I also get 40 bonus points for that DVD as well.

That is correct but remember downloaded music is different than purchased much with Yahoo Launch. If you buy a track at 79cents per song that will play forever even if you cancel your subscription to Yahoo Unlimited. Now if you get the Yahoo Unlimited subscription and download songs without paying per song if you cancel those songs won't play anymore because again you didn't buy them your renting to access to playback an unlimited amount of songs for the period of your subscription.

Now I like it because with a supported player like my iRiver H320 I can pay 60 bucks a year and transfer tons and tons of songs to my H320 without having to pay per song. Now again if I cancel my subscription or it runs out those files on both my computer and H320 player won't play anymore. I view this like HBO in that I'm paying a monthly price to get access to what is on HBO knowing I won't watch everything but I also know that if I cancel HBO I won't get to watch HBO content either.