In the online music sales battle, there are two groups: one that charges you per-song with no monthly fee, and one that charges you per-month. Apple’s iTunes Music Store is a good example of the first group, and Napster is a good example of the second. There are hybrid models like eMusic that charge you per month but cap the number of tracks you can download, and those tracks are yours to keep (they’re DRM-free MP3s, in eMusic’s case).

Each scheme has its advantages and disadvantages. The pay-per-song scheme means that once you’ve downloaded the song, it’s yours. You can play it whenever you want and wherever you want (at least, if you strip the DRM from it). If the music supplier goes bust or raises its prices, you can still listen to your music. On the other hand, if you’re a heavy music downloader it can get pretty expensive.

The pay-per-month scheme generally means that you can download as many songs as you like per month for one flat rate. If you go through songs like most people go through oxygen but you don’t have limitless funds, this would be the choice for you. However, if the company goes bust or raises its prices, you’re left high and dry. You could either continue to pay the monthly fee or not be able to listen to your music.

This disadvantage for the pay-per-month scheme is huge, and is the major reason why I think it’s the stupidest idea ever, and people who “buy” their music this way are throwing away their money. There’s an excellent example in Yahoo! Music — their subscription price is currently $6.99/month (or $59.88 if you sign up for an entire year), but tomorrow it’ll be going up to $11.99/month (or ~$120 for a whole year). If you’re paying month-to-month, then your rates will go up. If you don’t want to pay the increased price, tough beans, no more music for you. And what, theoretically speaking, would happen if a record label pulls out of the Yahoo! Music store? People would lose the rights to play that music, that’s what would happen. And there’s nothing you’d be able to do about it.

Contrast this with the iTunes Music Store. There are grumblings that the prices of tracks might go up from the current $0.99/track price. If the price goes up, Apple can’t retroactively charge you more money for the songs you already have. You could very well not give Apple any more money and you can still listen to your purchased music. Prices could go up to $50 a track, but you can still listen to your purchased music. If a record label pulls out, good for them, I can still listen to tracks that they put out and had on the iTMS when I purchased them.

I can’t understand why anybody would want to buy into a subscription-based music download model. Sure, it’s tempting to pay $60 (or even $120) for a year’s worth of unlimited music, but guess what? Ten years from now I can still listen to the songs I bought now, and I won’t have paid $1200 for the right to do so. And if you think the subscription prices are going to stay at the same levels they are now for the next ten years, then I have some nice land in Kalapana to sell you.