Yahoo Music Shutting Down, Users Going to Real

Tech.Luver sends in word of Yahoo's decision to exit the subscription music business. Yahoo's current subscribers — the company doesn't disclose how many it has — will be switched over to Real's Rhapsody service, and Yahoo will promote Real on its site. Yahoo had priced its subscription service significantly below Real's: $5.99 a month (if users pay a year in advance), vs. Rhapsody memberships at $12.99 a month and up. The Mercury News wonders how the Yahoo-Real deal would fare if Microsoft takes over — not well, the betting goes.

Re:RealPlayer

[Billly Gates]

Real player no longer sucks and its the only player on Linux that has correct color calibration and brightness on my laptops.

IT no longer has spyware and adware but the reputation quite damned it. Its quite slim now and fast since the company went in a different direction a few years ago. ... no I dont use it anymore on Windows and prefer Itunes. Raphsody requires real player so some people still use it. My wife has it on her computer but she rarely uses it anymore.

Re:That sucks

[darkhitman]

Well, if you're looking for a replacement, I've tried out two streaming music sites recently that are pretty good:

http://www.imeem.com/ [imeem.com] - Like youtube, but for music I guess. It has a lot of good playlists, even for my doom metal tastes.

http://www.pandora.com/ [pandora.com] - Streaming internet radio, dissimilar to imeem in that it randomizes what it will play for you - though it tries to play music similar to what you like/tell it you like through some sort of algorithm. Good for finding new stuff. I found Electric Wizard here.

Re:RealPlayer

[kcornia]

Some of those of us who are willing to give people/things a second chance have been pleasantly surprised with current incarnations of RealPlayer. It is non-adware, non-spyware, light on the CPU, and Rhapsody is AWESOME.

I've bought five or six albums in the past few months, several from artists I'd never have listened to (Daft Punk, Modest Mouse, Big Audio Dynamite to name a few) if not for Rhapsody including them in custom channels that I built. Granted I'm buying the CDs because Infiniti SUCKS and can't play home grown CDs in their player without it breaking and they don't have an input jack, but the point is I'm getting exposed to a bunch of new music for the first time in years thanks to Rhapsody.

I actually feel bad for them for having to pay such a high price for their early bad decisions. I mean, I shit-canned them back in the late 90's when they pulled those stunts, but they've matured a lot, and are one of the most complete players out there (although .mov files have quit working on them recently).

I encourage those of you who still have bad memories of Real to read up on the changes and perhaps give them another shot. Rhapsody really is kick ass. I'm sitting here listening to my Sansa player that has 4GB of music that I don't own and loving every minute of it.

I even take it out when I run now, even though I still have to cart the iPod Nano for the running shoes/chip combo.

Re:RealPlayer

[TubeSteak]

http://www.google.com/search?q=real+alternative [google.com]

I have it installed for when I run across the stray RealAudio or RealVideo file... but I can't recall the last time I did so on purpose.

I have checked out RealMedia Variable Bitrate [wikipedia.org] and I was very surprised how good the quality was compared to the shiatty RealVideo from days past.

Forcing badware on users ?

[Anonymous Coward]

thanks Yahoo! http://www.stopbadware.org/reports/reportdisplay?reportname=realplayer01282008 [stopbadware.org]

Re:RealPlayer

[webmaster404]

The reason that the pay subscription model is not insanely popular is probably because it is competing against the "free subscription" model, where you get all the same music, but for free.

Not to mention its DRMed and may not work on your devices. When someone offers a subscription model DRM free service that works on Windows/Linux/Mac in whatever encoding you want FLAC/MP3/OGG I will sign up until then its again the "pirates" offer a better product on more then just price and if this continues I don't see how digital music will survive.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:RealPlayer

[Symbha]

Not true...
Rhapsody requires the Rhapsody client, or the Rhapsody web plugin... but does not use Real Player.

I'm sure it uses the same tech...
However, I'm a Rhapsody subscriber, but I too refuse to install the Real Player.

Re:Subscription DRM services

[Carcass666]

Actually, my understanding on a subscription deal is that you pay an agreed upon amount of money to have access to a source of music for an agreed upon amount of time. Unless Yahoo is not giving their customers the ability to opt-out of a prolonged subscription (instead of switching to Rhapsody), I don't see how there is any bad faith on their part, or a problem with subscription models in general.

It would be a different story if I purchased a track and the DRM on the file required connection to a back-end server that didn't exist in the future (like Google video). In that case, if I purchased a track, and if I am denied future access to it then I should get a full refund. I agree with you if you're saying that purchasing a track with the potential of being denied access to it later should be avoided.

In Rhapsody's case, you can buy tracks (most of the time) by burning them onto a CD. Some artists are allowing purchase of unencumbered mp3's, nicer yet. Sometimes, artists may pull their music from Rhapsody (like Radiohead, bastards), in which case I can decide to cancel my subscription if it pisses me off enough. At any rate, I am paying a subscription to legitimately listen to music (and maybe get the artist 1/1000th of a penny when I do so). Works well enough for me.