A subscription model could improve Napster (Score 1)

I personally believe that a subscription model has the potential to improve the quality of Napster's service, not even considering the extra funding for Napster themselves.

The face of Napster could change significantly, if its users were limited to those who were willing to pay a small fee — roughly 1/4 of a CD at standard retail price. Not a whole lot to a music fan. I certainly don't mean to disparage casual music fans; but the facts are that Napster is a music-sharing service. The better the give/take ratio, the better the service. It's that simple.

In fact, reducing the number of "leech" users may actually increase the selection available on Napster, just among the remaining users. Think I'm crazy? Then consider that I moved about 80% of my ~40GB MP3 library in directories that aren't shared. Granted, legal threats were a factor in my decision; but by far, the biggest factor was that Napster was becoming unusable for me. I always loved it when somebody downloaded one of my files; I really enjoy spreading good music. But inevitably, within a few minutes of logging on, my DSL line would be uploading so much that not only could I rarely download anything faster than 1 kb/s, but neither could the dozens of people downloading from me. If the average user shared more files, there would be less of a burden put on those of us who would like to share a large collection.

Now, consider that I'm not the only Napster user who would contribute more files to the library if the give/take ratio were improved. A lot more files. Some files that probably aren't available anywhere on Napster right now. I know this for a fact, because I have many friends who, like me, are completely insane music/MP3 fans. Most of them have done the same thing with their libraries. And I seriously doubt that I and my friends are the only ones.

Other improvements could happen, too. Overall connection speeds could improve, as downloads would be spread among a larger group of users, instead of targeted to a few with large libraries. A bigger section of Napster users might be the sort who maintain their shared directories: removing truncated, corrupt, or low-quality files; naming files something easy to decode and search; and possibly even creating easy-to-navigate directory trees. I imagine there are other potential improvements that could happen.

Obviously, I don't know for sure what would happen to Napster if it switched to a subscription model, and there are plenty of other factors to be considered in such a decision. But Gnutella provides a good warning about what could happen if it continues the way it is now. It's sad, because the Gnutella concept is brilliant, but the biggest problem with actually using it is that the network is too slow to justify the narrow selection available. This was easily explained by a study I saw recently, which showed that an alarming percentage of Gnutella users share little or nothing at all on the network. Granted, Gnutella's network design amplifies this problem; but, as shown above, Napster certainly isn't immune to the consequences of the same problem.

P.S. To those who think everyone will switch to another "free" service — have you actually tried them lately? And furthermore, what makes you think those other services won't follow Napster's lead — especially if it's the only established way to prevent a legally forced shutdown?