Comments on: Yahoo axes music service, strikes deal with Rhapsody

Facing a takeover bid from Microsoft, Yahoo tries to keep business as usual by announcing a subscription-based music deal and an acquisition.

[mitrich]

Yahoo Music Match

YMM was D.O.A. when they took MM10 and stripped it of every great feature. They are now just burying the corpse.

[mattumanu]

and their subscribers

This is one subscriber who, once the price goes up, will walk. I was on musicmatch for years when Yahoo bought them less than a year ago. Yahoo has been nothing but a pain, DRM music from musicmatch didn't always work, whole albums disappeared off the servers...

I might not even make the transition. If I'd wanted to be on Rhapsody, I'd have signed up for them.

[dascha1]

As a Man Thinketh, So He Creates

Just as long as the deal has a music twist in it.

[streamOG]

So Now Yahoo is using DRM

After all that smack from Goldberg over the years...he couldn't get it done... he's out and now Real takes over Yahoo's subs and will be delivering DRM-managed music to them. Was just a matter of time.

[eldernorm]

More blood on iTunes

OH the horror of it all!! Has iTunes no shame?? :-)

OK, beyond the humor of it all, one after the other, these subscription music services keep dying, yet the pundits keep saying that iTunes needs to become one. WHY?

iTunes sells you your music, others let you rent it. I that is a fair arrangement. Get which ever service you want. :-) I am a firm believer in that.

However, when a subscription service says iTunes has it all wrong, I have to wonder which company goes under, and which one takes your pre-paid plans with it.

Just a thought.

[Squibly]

Canadians Out In the Cold

Must be nice to have an option at least. Rhapsody isn't available in Canada (I have my suspicions as to why - music publishers). Yahoo service is going south and we are to be left out in the cold. It's buggy but it was the best thing I could access here for the last 3 years. There are no other subscription services here.

So brilliant, all that inventory that I would never buy but would subscribe to for an occasional listen is back collecting digital dust. I'm not going to buy CDs ever again. Tracks I'll pick up once in a blue moon from our very limited services. My grudging $1000 a year habit had gone to around a very willing $250 (subscription, a few tracks and the odd CD). It's unlikely to break $50 a year now. Well done (Canadian) music industry. You'll get what you deserve. Tick, tick, tick.

[jonahemery]

There's more then just Yahoo Music Canada

There are two more Canadian subscription services out there that I know of: Napster.ca and the Sympatico MSN Music Store.

I've used Napster before and I'm not that impressed with it. They don't seem to put a lot of work into it and the music selection is dodgy.

However I'm impressed with the Sympatico one. They have an all you can download service for like $14 a month. The selection is AMAZING and so is the quality of the files. The only downside is that their download system is kind of weird.

[Squibly]

Thanks for the tip

I'm in the process of looking at Napster. The Sympatico/MSN service is the old Puretracks service which was always hit and miss when I used it before. Disconnecting in the middle of downloads and such, but I'll give it another shot on your recommendation. The advantage to Yahoo! was that it was instant streaming so it was very easy to craft playlists on a whim. And I liked the way you could customize a "radio" channel based upon preferences and ratings that you made over time.

Thanks.

[Cyberqat]

SOmething noone is reporting.....

Is that REAL has a very user hostile system for canceling your subscription.

I had Rhapsody and switched to YMU. Although you cna sign up for Real services online, there was no way to cancel online. In order to cancel my Rhapsody account I had to call their offices between 9am and 5pm their time (which happened to be my work hours) and argue with a live person who tried to tlka me out of canceling.

If you intend to cancel, take my advice and do it *before* the change over happens.