Yeah — it’s hard to believe that someone would want another monthly fee, paying 10 bucks for streaming music that they can’t even keep. However, people have actually been shelling out $15 for the privilege of Rhapsody. At least those thousands of fans should be happy to hear that the service has sliced its price.
In a move to keep on rocking, the service just announced plans to cut $5 off subscription prices, which will make unlimited streaming $9.99 per month.
That’s great for existing subscribers and anyone else thinking of making the leap. Still, it’s hard to believe that in a world where millions of music fans are still pirating up a storm (yes, they are), this music service is managing to stay afloat. Good for them.
The discount is the company’s first move since separately from Viacom and Real Networks. That’s great that they are growing up and all. However, just like when I moved out of my parents’ house, they will soon learn that it’s a tough world out there — and a super populated one, when it comes to music services.
With iTunes and Pandora kicking many audio-based asses, I have to wonder if Death is coming for Rhapsody. Do we all need another monthly fee to deal with? Apparently, the answer to that question is not a pretty one. CNET says the service lost 125,000 of its 800,000 subscribers last year.
It’s hard not to wish them well, but aside from the aforementioned services, there’s an insane amount of audio start-ups coming — and we haven’t even mentioned the iPad.
As of January 2010, Rhapsody boasts a catalog of 9,000,000 songs. Right now, you can get all of those goodies (and not-so goodies) on your PC, as well as different home audio devices and smartphones, such as the iPhone and Google Android.
