Napster On the Block

Ars Technica has a good wrap of Napster hanging out a "For Sale or Partner" sign. With half a million subscribers (down from the previous quarter) and $100M in annual revenue, the company is still bleeding cash. El Reg pinpoints the trouble: "The subscription crowd – and Apple via iTunes – must fight over a few pennies per song in profit. More from the Vulture: "You have to wonder if Napster's customer base is really worth the effort for a company such as Microsoft or even Real. The Napster brand has all the gravitas of a Che Guevara t-shirt."

For those of us that have payed?

[Gertlex]

So what does it mean for those of us that have used Napster's legitimate service if it evaporates? Do we lose access to our songs once we get a new MP3 player or computer?

Yes, I bought DRMed stuff that I was having no luck finding elsewhere. And no ITunes isn't suitable for my needs: I don't use or want an Ipod. (SanDisk Sansa if you must know)

Re:Is this a surprise

[nine-times]

Besides all that, there's just the fact that there isn't money to to made from selling music online. Let me rephrase that to be completely accurate: all the money made selling music goes to the label. Not to the artist, not to the online store, but just the label. Companies keep thinking that they're going to make a truckload of money if they release the new online store, but there's no business plan for it yet. For the amount of money the labels demand, and the price consumers are willing to pay, there's just not enough profit margin for a business to be "successful". It reminds me of the 90s when everyone thought they could make money if they had a web site, but they had no business plan.

The only reason Apple is "successful" is because they go ahead and run the store with basically no profit. On its own, the iTMS would probably be a failing venture, but because it's being used for marketing, "breaking even" is good enough.