Napster's price war
Can a cheaper subscription plan revive the music download site?
“Napster is back,” said Eric Savitz in Barron’s. Okay, it never truly went away, but new owner Best Buy has relaunched the music website with a cheaper, $5-a-month service providing subscribers with five MP3 downloads and unlimited streaming of Napster‘s 7 million songs. It will be interesting to see whether the service catches on.
The price-cut—down from $13 a month—is “a helluva deal for the real music lover,” said Peter Burrows in BusinessWeek, but it won’t be enough to revive Napster. “This new Napster offering is only for use on your PC or laptop. In this era of smart-phone mania, most people want to play their music wherever they want to play it.”
Napster offers a $14.95 plan for downloading music to cell phones and other portable devices, said Saul Hansell in The New York Times, just “not any that most people want to own.” But it’s not alone—the whole industry has to get better at connecting to music lovers’ cell phones if subscription music service is to survive. At least Napster’s new deal shows the “music industry is becoming more flexible in its pricing.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
'Musk's reliance on China draws rising scrutiny'
Today's Newspapers A roundup of the headlines from the US front pages
By The Week Staff Published
-
Biba: the story of a 'legendary emporium'
The Week Recommends Brand's 60th anniversary is being marked with retrospective celebrating the 'iconic shop's cultural importance'
By Adrienne Wyper, The Week UK Published
-
How the Russia-Ukraine conflict has spread to Africa
The Explainer Ukraine is attempting to strengthen its alliances on the continent to counter Russia's growing presence
By Richard Windsor, The Week UK Published