I cannot understand the hype Spotify caused. I think it is a great tool — like last.fm — to find new music genres and artists, but why the hell should I download a tool and pay for it? Last.fm is offering me more, and is free, with optional subscriber support.

I found a nice excerpt of an interview that sums up what I think about music subscription services:

Nobody wants to subscribe to music. They’ve bought it for 50 years. They bought 45s, they bought LPs, they bought 8-tracks, they bought cassettes, they bought CDs. Why now do they want to start renting their music? People like to buy it and they like to do what they damn well please with it when they buy it.

The rental model is a money-driven thing. Some finance person looked at AOL getting paid every month and said, ‘I’d sure like to get some of that recurring subscription revenue. Wouldn’t that be nice?’ It’s certainly not a user-driven thing. Nobody ever went out and asked users, ‘Would you like to keep paying us every month for music that you thought you already bought?’

Steve Jobs (April 2003)