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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
A music service exclusive to owners of the Amazon Echo at half the price of competitors?
Amazon wants to launch a music subscription service that would be half the cost of rival services and run only on its Echo smart speaker, according to Recode.
The service would offer unlimited, ad-free music for $4 to $5 a month, half what Spotify and Apple Music charge, sources told the site. The internet retail giant would like to launch the service as early as next month but has yet to finalize deals with the major recording labels, sources told the site.
[...]
Amazon already offers an Amazon Music service as part of its $99 Amazon Prime annual subscription package, but subscribers have access to a limited catalog of music.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by AndyTheAbsurd on Tuesday August 30 2016, @11:54AM
Once the streaming service is in place, I bet they will stop selling music in downloadable MP3 format.
You will pay for your streaming music and you will like it, Komrade.
Count me out. I don't want to rely on a network connection to get access to my music. Despite what people in Silly Valley and some parts of the Northeast US seem to think, free WiFi is not yet everywhere.
Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by WizardFusion on Tuesday August 30 2016, @01:20PM
I agree, I have over 180gb of MP3s (not a lot compared to some people) some of which I can't get anymore. It either doesn't exist or is only available in very select places.
That's the other issue here, some albums will only be available in some countries.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 30 2016, @09:58PM
Once the streaming service is in place, I bet they will stop selling music in downloadable MP3 format.
You will pay for your streaming music and you will like it, Komrade.
No. When it stops being the most profitable path (including things like future earnings and risk) they will stop selling MP3s. Not before then.
Proof: CDs are very buy-able. Even Vinyl records are very buy-able. Granted VHS tapes have gone by the wayside, but did you really care when they disappeared?
As long as the free market is working and customers demand DRM free, Amazon won't unilaterally eliminate mp3 selling. If Amazon was a content producer ad had a quasi-"conflict of interest," they may take a short-term hit in profitability in order for long-term profits... but as Amazon is a sales channel, if they don't sell what the public really wants then another channel will and take all of the consumer money.
Proof: See how quickly things changed once Apple finally cracked the DRM shell and got some of the content producers to start selling mp3s.
I'm prepared to believe there are vast conspiracies by industry against the free market (e.g. SOPA)... this is not one of them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 31 2016, @04:24PM
What's that you say? Businesses just want to maximize profit??? That's just crazy talk!
Sorry for the very backhanded way of saying excellent post and well written!
p.s. note.... Bezos has certainly indicated that profit isn't always his highest motive. (Not saying your wrong, just pointing out a particular point of question when it comes to Amazon specifically.)