How Much Would You Be Willing to Pay for Napster Service?

frazzledspice · #1 06-08-2001, 09:47 AM

Apparently, the average American spends $90 annually on music CD's (or $7.50 per month.)

Basic Napster service is projected to cost about $20 per month, with add on's bringing the potential price to $40 or $50 per month.

And there are still lots of napster clones out there where people are swapping their music.

Some analysts are saying that Americans will never be willing to pay more than $10 a month for Napster (considering that the average American is spending $30 a year less for his music right now.)

I'm not crazy about Napster-type services. My husband has started fooling around with a service called edonkey2000, which swaps first run movies, even those currently in the theatres, which can be saved on CD. It also swaps music and some software.

I don't like it because it slows our DSL service to a crawl when it's going. So much of the juice is going to edonkey that DSL is like a 22K modem.

I have been surprised at the quality of the pictures we've gotten from edonkey (considering that some of these films have been recorded from a movie screen.)

I don't think I'd subscribe to Napster, personally (although I did use it a few times when it was free to find songs that aren't available in stores anymore--and it's great for that purpose.)

**Joubert**[$] · #2 06-08-2001, 09:57 AM

Excellent question. My first instinct was to say I would pay $10 directly debited each month. I don't think I would go $20. This is going to be a very strange pricing decision and I'm personally glad I'm not involved.

What I suspect we'll see is a trial price of $x, some long term pricing (e.g., $300 for 3 years) and a bunch of companies that will begin rebating. Buy a new stereo or PC and it comes with free Napster for four months.

This is a classic continuity business - give away the razor and sell the blades. The goal is usage, even at a low level, to keep the monthly checks coming in.

What I found wonderful about Napster was the ability to pull rarities, bootlegs, demos, etc. from different servers. And yes, my family did end up buying 2 or 3 CDs from artists who we heard playing with other artists we liked.

I'll bid $14.95.

**drmomentum**[$] · #3 06-08-2001, 11:01 AM

It wouldn't be worth it at all to me to pay for a subscription to such a service.

-JP

erik_kosberg · #4 06-08-2001, 01:11 PM

Michael Dare has written an interesting article about paying for Napster (somewhat dated but still intriguing).

**pageclot**[$] · #5 06-08-2001, 03:41 PM

I won't pay a monthly rate, but I will pay per song.

I figure that something around $0.25 per song is reasonable, given that for the distributor, there are no packaging, shipping or printing costs. Of that amount, I think Napster would be entitled to $.05, or around 20%, for being the conduit. The record company and the artist could split the rest.

pageclot

frazzledspice · #6 06-08-2001, 04:17 PM

Interesting article, Erik.

It's certainly true that my twelve year-old daughter, just approaching her big-spending years on music, always complains about buying CD's when there is only one song she likes to listen to.

Sure, you can buy the CD single, but that's a pricey alternative.

I daresay that most of us would prefer anthology CD's with our favorite songs to CD's with a combination of songs we like and songs we don't.

magenta321 · #7 06-08-2001, 06:38 PM

I'd pay $20, maybe even up to $40. I think I would still be saving money, especially when you figure that there are three people in my household, and we all buy music. So $40 for the family would be a great savings.

Also, I only spend maybe $60/mo. on cds, but if I had more money, believe me, I would buy more cds. So, I think the service would be worth it. Luckily, I got my dad addicted to Napster, so I could probably convince him to pay for it for the fam!

patach · #8 06-09-2001, 03:47 AM

Some simple equations:

Napster = file sharers.

Intent of Napster = getting music for free.

Napster charges $20 = Intent of Napster is gone.

When Intent is gone = no file sharers.

No File sharers = no music.

It would become extremely hard to look for the mp3s that you want in Napster. Besides, there are so many other programs that have mp3s as a downloadable and are also "file sharing" programs. People could easily go there and leave Napster in the dust. An evil, but reasonable assumption to what would happen to Napster.:p

cristina1 · #9 06-09-2001, 08:57 AM

"No File sharers = no music. "

This is a great point. If they were to charge for the service, they would have to guarantee so much music was available somehow. If I paid a subscription and there was very little to choose from, I would cancel as fast as I subscribed.

And for the times that I have used Napster to find some of the songs that I like from barely one-hit wonders from the 80's that dont seem to make it on any "Best Hits of the 80's" CD's, it wouldnt make it worth it to me. As it is, when the music was free, it took me weeks to find my songs.

dlbrantley · #10 06-09-2001, 06:32 PM

Not a darn thing because I have Kazaa.com!

patach · #11 06-09-2001, 08:12 PM

Quote:

Not a darn thing because I have Kazaa.com!

Don't get all high and mighty. Kazaa.com has just announced they are planning to charge for their services later this year.

dlbrantley · #12 06-09-2001, 10:19 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by patach

Don't get all high and mighty. Kazaa.com has just announced they are planning to charge for their services later this year.

Well to live up to my new "high and mighty" attitude..I'm sure there will be another site just like kazaa that will pop up soon and they'll offer free downloads until they get greedy and so on and so on.

frazzledspice · #13 06-10-2001, 10:19 AM

I think that the point behind pay-for-play Napster is that the recording companies themselves would provide Napster with the music, as long as it was only shared with paying customers. Napster, in turn, would pay the recording company a royalty each time it shared the file with a customer.

patach · #14 06-10-2001, 03:12 PM

Quote:

I think that the point behind pay-for-play Napster is that the recording companies themselves would provide Napster with the music, as long as it was only shared with paying customers. Napster, in turn, would pay the recording company a royalty each time it shared the file with a customer.

If that's the case, then only a selected few can be downloaded. You wouldn't be able to download anything you wanted, but what record companies have supported for Napster. Which itself, will be extremely troublesome.

Me on the other hand, uses AOL servers to get my mp3s, so forget about Napster :p