Since I first wrote about eMusic, my life has changed and with it my relationship to this excellent service. Before I go further, let me reaffirm what I like about eMusic. First, it provides great value to independent music lovers wishing to discover new music and expand their music collections. Second, it provides subscribers with high quality MP3 files, free of digital-rights-management (DRM) restrictions. Last, its interface, message boards and editorial content make it easy to find good music. I've subscribed for close to three years now and have discovered lots of great music. I have long recommended eMusic, and have bought gift subscriptions for others. So why am I on the verge of cancelling my subscription?

The answer is two-fold: 1) I no longer have the time to tend to my subscription and 2) I'm increasingly uncomfortable with the fact that I'm forced to make purchase decisions on a timetable not of my choosing. Since I wrote The Music Internet Untangled, I've taken a new job that has cut into my music appreciation time and increasingly, I'm leaving eMusic downloads on the table. My subscription entitles me to download 40 tracks per month, but if I don't use them by month's end, I lose them. If it was simply a matter of kissing a few downloads goodbye every now and again (or even a month's worth), it wouldn't be such a big deal. But the problem is deeper.

I've come to realize that I'm not built to assimilate 40 tracks of new music per month, month in and month out, like some music consuming automaton (although for a while it seems that I was). The eMusic subscription model forces that on me. Second, I've become less interested in making the "ownership" decision. What do I mean by this? With eMusic (or any other download store), every time I download a track I'm buying it for keeps. I'm taking on the responsibility of ownership: I've got to store, manage, and back the file up. If I choose wrong, and never play the album again, I'm out my investment. This makes the decision to download more of a chore, as I feel the need to read reviews before clicking on the download button.

I don't feel that way with my Rhapsody online jukebox subscription, where I pay for access not ownership. Here, I can play any song in the catalog without having to think about whether I ought to buy it, or whether it merits owning. If I never play the album again, it's no concern to me. If I don't use Rhapsody much in a given month, it doesn't feels as bad as leaving downloads on the table. And now that I'm using Rhapsody-To-Go, which provides portable subscription tracks, I can take this music with me wherever I go, thus eliminating the main advantage of purchased downloads, their portability. This is freedom!

Now that I've lived with subscription based access to music, I'm more convinced than ever that this is the way for me. I suspect that increasingly, others will come to this conclusion too.

—Andy Breeding

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