I never really used the iTunes Store tbh until recently to help boost my faves' sales. I just use the iTunes media player for all my downloaded music lol. Tagging and scrobbling how I want it is so much easier on iTunes.
It wasn't really a thing in Europe, because of the fragmented markets Apple would have to deal with 25+ writers/publishers/copyright associations in the EU alone. After waiting for ages combined with the average citizen not having credit cards.
It did change the public from buying albums (Because 3 5 euro singles was just as expensive as a 15 euro album.) to buying only the songs they want and skip the 9 to 10 fillers made possible because it doesn't cost a thing to transfer an infinite amount of songs over the Internet.
We came from shops buying recent albums for 10 euro and selling it for 15 to 22 euro (what I paid for PRISM). There is no good reason why albums on iTunes shouldn't be 9.99. It happens that you can get older CD album cheaper (read: half price) than on iTunes.
Why shouldn't singles be priced at 9.99/12 = 83 cent? For less than 3 dollar you should be able to get the 3 songs you like and pay dust to the 9 fillers.
Apple doesn't make money from iTunes, it's the money hungry labels. For Apple it's a promo tool to gives the PC people their first taste of Apple lifestyle without having to pay insane prices for the hardware. Once they get hooked to Apple, they can also start paying for their hardware.
The idea of paying for something virtual that you could download from other sources on Internet too doesn't feel like collecting CDs, vinyl,...
This split the market in convenience oriented consumers wanting music appear out of "nowhere" like the water from the tap, power from the socket,... and the collectors looking for even bigger cover art and experience than the CD, vinyl needs your attention of calibrating a turntable, spend time with the record, a side of the disc for 3 songs of an album, putting the needle on it,...
I have Spotify Premium to listen to whatever I might want to anywhere, anytime,... Just saw so tweet passing by and on the highway, in the woods,... I can tell Spotify to play that new song, artist,... Great for trying out discographies.
I collect my fave's CD albums, CD singles,... and some vinyl.
I will keep using iTunes and even my iPod, aslong as my favorite artists are spread around streaming services and aslong as not the full discographies of artists, including B-sides and bonustracks are not available on those platforms, I won't be able to fully enjoy or use it.
But physical music is basically what I buy 99% of the time
Honestly I've never used it though , I still tend to buy CDs then rip them to my phone/ipod etc. Getting something digitally never felt like i actually owned anything.
Streaming for me is just like a replacement for radio. Although sad to see itune's decline, I'm still stuck in buying physical copies of albums
Lots of services are using subscriptions nowadays. Windows Enterprise, Office, Adobe Photoshop, Spotify etc because gives more money. And people are falling for that. I'm never paying for stream music. That's not wise at all.
Lots of services are using subscriptions nowadays. Windows Enterprise, Office, Adobe Photoshop, Spotify etc because gives more money. And people are falling for that. I'm never paying for stream music. That's not wise at all.
This. I use Spotify for the algorithms (which are really complicated to build and implement) so I respect it from that angle, but still, they've designed it for you to be a monthly consumer for life. None of it belongs to you. And the deeper you get into it the harder it is to break the subscription.