Yahoo! Music Unlimited bumps up to $6.99 / $11.99

It was no real secret that Yahoo! Music Unlimited had its intentions to raise the price from their bargain-basement low of $4.99/6.99 annual/monthly PlaysForSure subscription music rates—and surely enough they have. Now if you'd like the pleasure of downloading music from them you'll now have to pony up $9.99/11.99, though users who don't have a portable music player will able to keep their $6.99 pinned so long as they don't need to move their music to a portable. Even after the price cut YMU is still the least expensive major subscription music service we know of, so don't get too freaked about the hike, ok?

[Thanks Dave and John]

[WG @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Yeah, because EVERYBODY wants to rent music. And when you stop paying $10 a month, your music goes away. Makes perfect sense to me. Send me in coach, I don't need any headgear!

[Bryan @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

1: you obviously have not tried this service. It is absolutely amazing. Imagine if you could listen to any song sold on Itunes without paying per song. The 30 second preview turns into an unlimited full song button. I have been using yahoo music engine for a couple of months now, and love it. The best part to me is the way you can try out music you never would have paid for, and find out you really like it. When I hear someone mention a band in conversation. I go home and pull the band up in yahoo, and BAM.. every album, every song. If I don�t like it, I have lost nothing. It also comes with Launchcast Plus as a bonus. This service is still a steal at $10 a month. I don�t even have an MP3 player to take the music with me. It pretty cool to have almost every album ever made sitting in my living room.

[Goodman @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Odd, I just went to http://music.yahoo.com/unlimited/ and there's no mention of a price hike.

I'm a member and I love the service. I really dig being able to constantly experiment with new music, at no addtional cost. And since I like covers, its great to listen to the different versions of the same song by different artists. I think it's a great entertainment value, and I keep my Dell Pocket DJ packed with new music at all times.

[cmoney @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Perhaps the biggest problem with music rental isn't that if you stop paying, you lose your music. It's that if the company stops the service, you lose your music. So far, music rental hasn't been very successful business model.

I think that if marketed right, music rental could be a success. After all lots of people have made the decision to pay $100/month for pretty much their lives for cable TV. I think if a music rental company partnered with a broadband provider and offered a $5 add on, it could be successful.

[scott @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Exxcept for the fact that I get script errors more often then not and it works like 3 days a week it is fine.

[iMB @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

goodman writes: "Odd, I just went to http://music.yahoo.com/unlimited/ and there's no mention of a price hike."

They're a little cagey about it, but see http://music.yahoo.com/unlimited/pricingpage/ at the bottom where they talk about the To Go feature.

[Ka Nai`a @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Anyone who has actually tried this service knows how buggy and pathetic the engine is. Yes, I said pathetic. While the selection may be good and the price is good. What�s the point if the program you have to use feels like it never left alpha stages?

I signed on and bought myself a Plays for Sure player. The first problem I had was when I installed it I only installed it on one computer. The computer crashed and I had to reformat. When I reinstalled it said I had it on too many computers. This would only bring my count to two and you are allowed three I think. So I submitted a support request, supplied my Yahoo ID, name, and everything else and the problem I had. Two weeks later I get a reply that stated that I needed to supply my Yahoo ID. So I replied back and said it was there, in fact I saw it in their reply. Three weeks go by again and finally I get a response that my computer count has been reset.

I downloaded all sorts of music and moved it over to my player. Then it started saying I couldn't move any music because of a license restriction. I tried resetting the license by right clicking on the tracks, I've deleted all the tracks and re-downloaded them, and I even downloaded different songs with the same results. So as of today I still have no response from Yahoo and I sent two requests for support. It's been 6 weeks now. Maybe they are still looking for my Yahoo ID.

It's great on paper but it�s not ready to go live. Stick with one of those other services out there. Keep this one around if you love aggravation and maybe the $0.89 per track burn price.

Oh, and you know it may be cheaper to get the actual CD if you buy the CD used. Then you get your music, a real CD, and the RIAA doesn't get anything.

[Jason Pratt @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Rhapsody + ReplayMusic and you can record to MP3 everything you listen to.

So no rental go-away issues.

Rhapsody costs me $9.99 a month - I don't know if that's some special deal because I've been using it for years but its as affordable as the new Yahoo! pricing...

Jason

[some dude @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

I totally agree with #2. I mean I want to own my music, and I do buy music and download some mp3's, but YME is freaking wonderful for discovering new music or checking out a band. I've been using it since launch which was like... 4 months ago? In that time I've discovered about 10 new bands that I REALLY REALLY REALLY like, and about 15-20 more that are pretty good. Some of these were bands I heard mentioned in conversation that I probably wouldn't have had the time or motivation to check out by seeing if I could borrow a CD or find an album on BT. But with this, I have access to the vast majority of music out there, instantly, without having to download anything.

I got the annual subscription for 5/month, and it's been totally worth it. I knew the price would go up eventually, but the good news is that if you dont have a portable player you want to use with it (which is the case for me - no portable player), then the price is pretty much the same.

I agree the software itself seems a bit buggy at time and is slow and a bit ugly, but it's still a wonderful value in my opinion, for all the new music I've discovered.

[R-Bro @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Interesting how divided people are over the concept of renting music. I agree that it sounds a bit nuts, but once you try it, it's hard to give it up. My biggest wish is that Yahoo would accept PayPal, as Napster does. I'd subscribe in a heartbeat.

[Nate V @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

I think where Yahoo takes the cake is there price point (even still) and the fact they have a HIGH quality download. 192kbps. I dont know where else you can get that. I dont subscribe yet, I am waiting to get Plays For Sure player. The software sucks, but worth it for a high quality download in my eyes. Anything above 9.99 would not work though.

[and @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Rhapsody kicks ass.

[devicenull @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

http://www.allofmp3.com

Download music, you pay for bandwidth, so things come out very cheap.. CD's for around $1.25, songs for like $0.10.. Plus, no DRM, and you get it in pretty much any format you want

[Robert @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

I subsribe to Napster at $9.95 month when they started.

[Mysta @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

I've got an iPod and I wish apple would let us use 'our' pod with any service we like. I don't like ITMS, but like the price point and variety of music Yahoo! Music offers.

I may end up getting a player that is compatible w/ yahoo! but all the ones I see aren't large enough for the amount of music I have (over 30 gigs).

[Rory @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

I prefer a middle grounds between iTunes expensive tracks and poor quality and PlayForSure rentals.

http://www.allofmp3.com/

Huge catalogue. Full album previews. Very affordable and you own what you purchase. 2 cents US per mb. And you select your codec (anything that's either Lossless or Lossy) and high quality, so you control the amount of mbs per album.

And, EXCELLENT customer support. Fast response and very quick to credit back your account if you have a problem with an album.

And finally... no DRM!!

[Uchendu Nwachukwu @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

I'm a member of YMU, and as others have said, it's a boon for discovering and experimenting with new music, and the price and quality is best-in-class, even with the price increase (which we all knew was coming anyway.) Annual subscribers like me will see no price increase for a year anyway, and after that, it's less than a Benjamin a year.

With regard to bugginess, when I first tried it, it was hugely buggy, throwing script errors up at every turn. Now, it runs smooth as silk. So smooth that I'm considering using it as my primary player instead of Windows Media Player 10.

I'm not too bummed about the price hike.

[John @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

I've been using Yahoo for a couple of months. The application itself is the crappiest thing ever (script errors, random crashes, features suddenly stop working). But the concept is great. For people who want to own the music though, might I point out that you can download whatever you want as a DRM'd WMA file that you can then play locally - and then using a program like tunebite make a perfect MP3 digital copy. Works out great for me - I've 'downloaded' hundreds of albums, converted them to mp3's and stuck 'em in my iPod. If there is a loss of quality between the original WMA and converted MP3 I can't hear it - and tunebite (and I'll bet there are other apps) do the conversion at 4x normal playing speed. Smashing!

[JL984 @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

I wonder who at apple won the betting pool about when Yahoo Music would raise their prices.

http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1089

[Ben @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

#15: Allofmp3.com is illegal in the US. YMU is not, which is one of the great things about it. If you don't mind being illegal, you might as well just get your music via P2P rather than paying to break the law.

[Ror @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Yeah, I thought that original price was kinda low. I actually think music rental could take off eventually, although not for some time yet.

[Brad @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

#20: if allofmp3 was LOCATED in the US, it would be illegal. It's not located here; it's not illegal. Clown.

[MrFloppy @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

I can�t wait for Yahoo Tv Unlimited with that price :p

[Bill @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Right now I have 849 songs loaded on my Creative Zen Micro, and every one is a Yahoo subscription track. If I bought each track at Yahoo's price of 79 cents per song, that would cost me $670. That would pay the subscription for five and a half years. But I have far more than 849 songs. I have about 4,000 Yahoo subscription songs on my PC, and I download about 50 or so more each week. Those 4,000 songs would cost $3,160 if I bought them. In addition, if I lose the hard drive or delete the files, I just download them again. Certainly, if I owned the tracks I would back them up, but if I lost them I would be out of luck and have to pay to replace them.

For the price of 8 CD's per year, I have a million+ tracks. I'll never buy a CD again.

[carl @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

I haven't had any of the buggy issues that others have experienced, but I've only installed it on two computers. I too have found many enjoyable bands that I otherwise would never have heard of. They don't have everything by any stretch of the imagination, but there's enough to keep me happy. I like the tagging and file naming control. It's way better than Napster, which I thought was terrible and dropped like a dirty diaper when YME came along.

[carl @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

one other thing: Sign up for a year before Oct. 31st, and still only pay $60. That's pretty fair, I think.

[Matt @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Does allofmp3 still cost less if you have thousands of tracks from YMU? Also, does allofmp3 have 1 MB/sec+ transfer rates like yahoo? Just curious.

[Matt @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Wait, $6.99 or $9.99?

[Middle school teacher @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Hm... I wonder if Yahoo! will do that for their domain name registration services, too. I have a domain I'm paying $5/year for right now, while GoDaddy (the other registrar I used) charges $9/year.

[Joe @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Quote from a previous poster:
I agree the software itself seems a bit buggy at time and is slow and a bit ugly, but it's still a wonderful value in my opinion, for all the new music I've discovered.

You've been using a Windows machine too long. You've equated mediocrity with being good.

[Joe @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Quote
I have about 4,000 Yahoo subscription songs on my PC, and I download about 50 or so more each week.

That's 266 hours of music. How many can you possible listen to? This is the mental trap used by the "All you can eat for one price" sales tool. Most people don't listed to music for 266 hours a month. Hence their cost per listening hour is higher than they think. Sure there are exceptions to the rule but those people are few and far between.

[meehawl @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

People who say things like "the subscription model will never work" obviously never venture past the iTunes firewall. In the real world subscription services are everywhere, and booming. Do the phrases "XM", or "Sirius" mean anything to you?

Or consider this. There's a forecast that Apple will make close to $900 million from iTunes sales this year. But there's also a forecast that Yahoo will make around $800 million - $850 million. And it's only been running for half the year. And Apple has been running iTunes for years! And Apple has all those iPods out there but Yahoo has not!

So it Yahoo can suddenly come along and makeas much as Apple within only a few months, then which business is better: downloads, or subscriptions?

[Joey Geraci @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

A little info about allofmp3:
The transfer rates kinda suck, at least for me. I get about 50 KBps, which means it takes about 3 minutes to download a 192 encoded aac song at about 3:30. And I am on a (usually) very fast college network.

I don't know what you mean by does it cost less if you already have 1000's of yahoo songs. If you had bought each and every one of those songs, I would understand your point, but if those songs are all apart of your subscription, then you don't really lose any money by switching allofmp3, other than feeling kind of foolish for spending all of that money on monthly fees. I would probably cost you about $138 to replace 1500 songs with drm free high quality (any quality you want actually, along with practically any format, including ipod compatible m4a) files. That is not a inconsequential cost, but you know own these files without any restrictions on burning or putting on additional computers or devices, you are free to do with them as you will. It is the best deal out there in my opinion.

[Joey Geraci @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

update:

I have been experimenting with Allofmp3 explorer, the app that you can get to download songs from allofmp3.com. It has a lot of really cool features, one of them being that download speed through the application appears to be about twice the speed then through the website.

I also forgot to mention one of the best features of allofmp3, full song previews! It is at 24 kbps mp3 mono, which is to say, crappy to the extreme, but you can certainly get the gist of whether you like the song or not a lot better than with a high quality 30 sec preview.

[Bill @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

That's 266 hours of music. How many can you possible listen to? This is the mental trap used by the "All you can eat for one price" sales tool. Most people don't listed to music for 266 hours a month. Hence their cost per listening hour is higher than they think.



The same arguement could be made with people who have large compact disc collections. I have about 500 CD's myself, but I rarely listen to most of them. If I paid $10 per CD, that's 500 months worth of subcription service. 41 years! But instead of being stuck with 500 CD that I would rarely listen to, I have access to new music and music that I like but didn't want buy on a CD. Cost per listening hour isn't that high, and I'm not sure if thats a useful metric. Fact is, the cost is fixed at $10 per month.

You know, both Yahoo and Rhapsody offer free trials. Try one (I suggest Rhapsody because it's a far better interface, but more expensive than Yahoo) and see for yourself. It's a bit like being a kid in a candy store.

[Superguy @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

I've been using YME since day one. The player is overall slow but usable. The best song usually aren't available and i'm on my 2nd Plays For Sure player, the Philips 6330 which supports album art. Too bad YME won't transfer over album art nor ratings. Bummer