If music is a utility that means it’s fungible.  A glass of New York City water in Bushwick is interchangeable with one in the Upper East Side.  The juice that’s running this PC on 52nd Street in Manhattan works the same as the power on 52nd Street in Woodside or Sunset Park.  If music is fungible then Jay-Z is worth the same as Beethoven.  Jazz is the same as Hip-Hop.  No matter what an A&R;guy does he’s not going to sell more Maroon5 to a Total Music subscriber.  I hate most pop, hip-hop and country....so I’m down with the New Order.

My guess is that the deals are still on the table to be discuss.  I wonder how well will this kind of model will work out.  I mean if music is like a utility, it’s pretty much like cable and satellite TV, and when you stop footing out the monthly commitment, that’s when the music stop playing.  I think the music industry should keeps their options open, because the more choice a customer has the better for all.  I mean not everyone will be on the same page.  Not everyone will like the new subscribe model.  Sometime just the word subscribe will be putting people off a lot.  If someone approach me or give me a cold call over the phone to ask me to subscribe to one of their magazine subscription, I probably slamming the phone down hard onto the phone-station.  I think…

Valley Wag had a good (harsh) analysis of this: consumers want to play their music on multiple devices, and what if not all your devices subscribe? And if they all do subscribe, then why would the device makers pay for this, since it’s a zero sum game if everyone has this feature and no one device maker gains share, just gets more cost. Personally, I think people want to own their music, like they own a CD.  They dont want it attached to a device whose service provider they may trade in.

hate to say i told you so but i wrote an article about a flat tax rate- like 3 years ago...finally the dumb kids are catching up…