Apple has begun to stop selling iTunes downloads | Hacker News Reader

Apple has begun to stop selling iTunes downloads

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13 pointsprotomyth17 comments

The whole idea that I can no longer "own" my copy of music, videos, etc. is insane to me. I understand why it benefits Apple, but not the user.

What happens if I don't have a data connection? What if I dont want to use data to listen to a song more than once?

Music isn't video, I have enough space on my phone to have 10,000 hours of music.

Discovery to me has been worth the ads. I find bands through concerts, friends, the radio, and Spotify. However, when I find a band I like I either spend the little bit of money to buy the album. Usually, it's like $5 or $10, and if I don't buy it then I really didn't like it enough to listen to it more than once anyway.

I wouldn't pay for Spotify because it doesn't have everything I want anyway - and I definitely don't want to buy a CD a month, so it's saving me money not to get premium. Apple is now going to have the same model. It's more expensive to the consumer and at least for me, i actually get less.

>What happens if I don't have a data connection? What if I dont want to use data to listen to a song more than once?

Pretty much every streaming app caches the songs you play and/or lets you saves songs to disk for future offline playback.

1) I'm pretty sure they won't cache my entire music library.

2) That defeates the purpose of discovery - thus removing the need for the app (obviously besides the UI/indexing)

I guess my point is that I like the freedom "owning" stuff provides. It's cheaper, but not easier, and I'd just like to have both options.

Edit: I really disagree with the idea I can't switch apps and keep the songs, i can't copy where ever I want, can't embed it in something I'm doing, etc. It's locking you in unnecessarily, I don't disagree streaming is cool, but I want both options available

Don't know about itunes, but google play definitely allows you to mark anything you want as available offline. As long as you have disk space. Same with spotify (but they will force you to reauth from time to time to keep it offline)

You can download every song to your device for offline playback.

This is a misleading clickbaity title. They never stopped selling iTunes downloads, they introduced Apple Music in South Korea where they never offered iTunes downloads before. This makes perfect sense. The article acknowledges that the South Korean market is dominated by independents, and foreigners find it hard to negotiate with them. Why put a bunch of effort into negotiating the contracts for streaming (which is on the way down) and also Apple Music (which is on the way up)?

I was very, very hesitant to join the streaming music era. I had many thousands of songs in iTunes that I had bought (either on CD, from iTunes, or from Amazon MP3). I wasn't comfortable 'renting' my music.

Now I subscribe to Google Play Music and I haven't bought a traditional music album in probably two years. I started by uploading my whole library (which is a unique feature to GPM) and have supplemented it with streaming. The only music I buy anymore is recordings of live shows or Kickstarters, which are almost never available on streaming services.

It's really amazing how far these streaming services have come in a few years. They went from a total gimmick (Napster, Zune Music anyone?) to something that almost everybody chooses to use.

I'm solidly on either side of the gap— I collect physical media (because it's fun, satisfying, and DRM-free), and use streaming services (because they're convenient). Digital ownership seems inherently risky to the consumer. Buy the CD: it's permanent and tangible, and the digital copy comes free!

The explanation quote: "Just three months ago, the tech giant denied rumours that it was going to stop selling downloads from the iTunes store 'within 2 or 3 years'. However, reports are now coming in that music downloads have already been axed in South Korea, suggesting that a worldwide rollout may be imminent."

Later in the article:

> South Korea, the home of K-Pop, is the eighth largest music market in the world. [...] Apple has never launched iTunes in the country, but has taken the plunge with Apple Music.

So downloads were 'axed' in a country where they never offered downloads?

Did not read that right the first time, wtf? Wasn't SK on the list? I am now confused.

Nobody clicks articles that aren't confusing.

I blame the end of a problematic day of vendor relations for the misread.

[edit] I will say that I don't use Apple Music because software that deletes things from your computer in the background has always bit me in the butt.

Crap article, and I flagged it. How do you "axe" a tree that never existed? From that basis, we then extrapolate that Apple must be shutting off downloadable content world-wide. I'm sure someone will along shortly with a link to the Wikipedia page for this logical fallacy.

I've begun to stop buying music over iTunes.

I really wish Bandcamp had something to compete with Apple Music's curated streaming stuff. I'd pay for that, especially if I could also apply filters like location, etc. That would be really interesting.

I'm not a fan of streaming for listening to favorite music, but it can't be beat for discovery.

In any case I'm going to have to start looking for alternatives.

I use Pandora and Google Play to find stuff, and Bandcamp to pay artists and get downloads if they're there. I know streaming is a raw deal for creators sometimes.

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