Rhapsody lowers it’s subscription price

In it’s first move as an independent company, Rhapsody music subscription service has lowered its price from 15$ a month to 10$ a moth. Shortly after separating itself from parent organization RealNetworks the music service company is vying to compete more affectively in the ever changing music sales market. Competing against rival subscription service Napster, online stores like ITunes and Amazon MP3, as well as illegal downloading, Rhapsody is doing all it can to attract new customers. Last year the company began including iPhone and Android phone apps that make it easier for subscribers to access their music away from their PC or laptop.

Subscription music services are cool ideas, but they have yet to become ‘big’ in North America. In Europe there is Spotify which offers legal peer-to-peer sharing for 9.99 Euros a month. Imagine having access to all the music you could ever want, and keep it organized as you would like for one price. The subscription model doesn’t sound too bad- unless of course, you don’t pay for your music anyway.

So why hasn’t Rhapsody caught on? In part its because Apple has done such a good job at marketing their music products, and because people seem resigned to still want to ‘own’ their property. My guess, however, is that Rhapsody’s price cut can only attract new customers to the more efficient model for music sales.