Decided to stay with eMusic

Wednesday 01 December 2010 at 10:59 pm. Used tags: ,

eMusic has made a number of changes during the past that were going to substantially increase the music cost when my subscription ran out.  My plan gave me 90 downloads for $15/month, or 17 cents per track. I didn't mind taking a chance on music because at worst I would be out a couple bucks, and often I found something unexpected that I did like. To eMusic's credit, they did keep my purchasing power pretty much constant in spite of all the pricing changes they had.

I expected that I would drop my eMusic subscription. If the cost was about the same as Amazon, and I didn't have a montly use-it-or-lose-it commitment, why stay with eMusic?

It turns out that I found a couple reasons to keep my subscription. One was cost - they had a special deal for long-time subscribers that made the subscription still pretty cheap. My cost per track pretty much doubles, but that is still not all that expensive. The other is that eMusic is a much better music site than Amazon.

I recently bought some tracks for Robert at Amazon, and the experience was like going to Wal-Mart. There are bins of music, with little guidance or organization other than basic categorization. The music is put in a bin, and that's all you are going to get.

eMusic, on the other hand, shows related work, influences, links to related web pages and videos, and reviews by eMuisc staff, external reviewers and customers. It is a whole music ecosystem, and leads to interesting discoveries. It is like going to a local music store, run by an enthusiast.

So, between good prices and a superior web experience, I decided to stay. However, it is a great shame that lost some important independent labels. The labels say eMusic was trying to squeeze them too much. That seems like an odd things for eMusic to do, given that they have tripled their prices for most people. Could the large new libraries they have been making available from major labels be requiring a disproportionate amount of eMusic's money?