eMusic misses the mark

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:22:46 GMT

I'm a couple weeks behind in noticing the announcement by eMusic of their subscription plans and the imminent arrival of the Sony Music back catalog and its promised roster of vapid radio detritus. The cost, apparently, is that they're raising prices by 50% across the board (or more like 100% for the longtime members with grandfathered subscription plans from the early days of the service), to roughly $0.40 per song. I've been a devoted customer of eMusic for several years now, eagerly burning through 200 downloads at a time on one of the $50/month "Connoisseur" plans for much of that time, yet I thought their prices were already too high. This latest move is too much for me to bear, and I immediately used my remaining downloads and cancelled my subscription.

Perhaps eMusic feels that access to the wider catalog of music will offset the increased cost. If they think their existing subscribers will understand, they are gravely mistaken. Given the option, I'd rather Sony Music go out of business, their back catalog be destroyed in a fire, and their CEO choke to death on his breakfast. This article puts it nicely:

Most eMusic fans I've heard from are real music nuts, and are there to sample a wide range of music from relatively unknown cutting-edge acts, not to download music they could find anywhere. Imagine the clerks in High Fidelity suddenly being told that their favorite mail-order distributor is raising prices, but in exchange will now let them order ABBA and Chili Peppers records just like the chain stores in the mall.

In my brief investigations so far, I haven't found another music service that is competitive with eMusic, even (perhaps) at their new price point. I don't consider that an argument for staying with eMusic rather than defecting to another service, though. Given that I consider $0.40/song roughly twice what I'd call a reasonable price, I instead take it as an argument for not buying music online at all. It isn't like there aren't alternatives.

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eMusic misses the mark