Why canceling your iTunes subscription is your first step to being free
I can remember it like it was yesterday. I had just arrived at the office and my colleague was going on about a new hip hop album that had just been released. Back then, I had had an iPhone for about a year or so. I still had my old MP3 player that I used for listening to music. Therefore, I didn’t really see the need to subscribe to iTunes. This, however, meant that I wasn’t that up to date on the latest music on the market.
Now at this point I imagine I must have come across silly to my colleague. He shamelessly felt a strong need to remind me that a) I work for a digital innovation company and b) iTunes is so cheap, convenient and offers unlimited music, it makes no sense that I don’t have it — and I think that’s the moment I lost my freedom.
“Cheap, Convenient and Unlimited— go to value propositions for products/services that operate on a subscription based model.”
In this article I examine the idea of whether iTunes is really as cheap, convenient and offers unlimited music as we think. I explore this through the use of a fictional character & graphs with fictional data, and lastly show you what this has to do with being free. I hope by the time you’re done reading this article, I would have not only convinced you to cancel your subscription, but rather to start buying your favourite music instead 😎
1. How cheap is cheap really?
Meet 28 year old Salizwa. This fictional character has had an iTunes subscription since he was 18 years old. Based on the macrotrends, the average life expectancy of a South African is about 64.12 years. If Salizwa started his subscription at the age of 18 and has been paying R60 monthly, by the end of his life he would have spent a total of R33,840. However, if Salizwa never subscribed to iTunes and decided to buy his music from the App Store instead, he would have spent a total of R16,350 — let’s look at this closely.
The amount Salizwa spends when he is on a subscription vs when he buys his music on the App Store is roughly the same for the first 10 years of his life. After the age of 30 however, we would start to notice a decline in the spend on music.
This decline could be attributed to the fact that the older we become, the less new music we listen to. We tend to stick with the same artists we already know and will spend our money mostly on buying their music.
However, this still doesn’t say anything about how much music Salizwa would download if he’s on a subscription vs if he’s buying music from the App Store. The assumption therefore is: if he is using an iTunes subscription he would download more music than if he has to spend roughly R100 to buy a full album.
We notice that for the first 10 years, there would be an increase in music downloaded while on subscription vs music being bought. However, after his 30's, if Salizwa was not on an iTunes subscription, we would start to see a decline in the number of albums he purchases, resulting in a total of 109 albums he owns.
While he’s on a subscription, he would continue to download music resulting in total of 610 albums downloaded throughout his lifetime. Knowing that past his 30’s his interest in trying out new music declines, continuing to pay for subscription to download music he probably won’t listen to doesn't seem to make any sense.
“…continuing to pay for subscription to download music he probably won’t listen to doesn’t seem to make any sense.”
2. Is iTunes really convenient?
iTunes makes it easier to access music, and syncs perfectly with other Apple devices. I could enjoy my music whenever I wanted to. Because I was subscribed to the service, I had built an awesome music library that I came to enjoy greatly. After 3 years I decided it was time for me to cancel my subscription. I noticed I wasn’t really downloading any new music and it made no sense for me to continue paying for this service anymore — and boy was I brought to reality quickly, I lost everything. The iTunes model is simple, you pay for their service and they continue “leasing” the music to you — but you never own it and this is something I want to examine closely.
Let’s take a look at Salizwa again, and examine how much music he would actually own if he is on an iTunes subscription vs if he is buying his music from the App Store.
Any music Salizwa purchased from the App Store when he was 18, he will own until he is in his late 60’s (provided the service is available by that time). Opposite to that, if he stays on a subscription he will never own it and can only have access to the music, provided he keeps paying the monthly subscription fee.
“…If he stays on a subscription he will never own it and can only have access to the music, provided he keeps paying the monthly subscription fee.”
This touches on my last point, which is that iTunes music is “unlimited”. It may be the case that iTunes offers its users unlimited music, but what’s the point if it comes with such a heavy cost? A cost of them never owning any music, a cost of having to pay for a service your entire life, a cost for convenience — that seems like a cost too much to bear.
So what does this have to do with being free?
The idea of wanting access to products without owning them, has created a big shift in consumer behaviour. This business model ties us to products and services if we want to continue using them, and at the end we come out with nothing to show for all the money spent on them. At the beginning of this article I mentioned that my subscription to iTunes meant that I lost my freedom. What I meant was, I lost a sense of ownership of the music I had come to love and enjoy and relied on a product that leases out music to me, so long as I kept footing the bill.
But just pointing out faults without offering a solution would be against my nature. My solution is simple — services need to start finding a hybrid business model that can allow consumers to “subscribe to own”. In our use case, iTunes could offer users an option to pay a bit of a higher subscription rate and in exchange offer them an ability to own an album every month or so. In this way the user benefits by getting to own the music they enjoy, and Apple also acquires users who would be willing to pay for this premium service. Now would this model work? I don’t know, but the current model certainly didn’t work for me and I wonder if it’s working for you?
