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Comment by unexpected | Hacker News Reader

If the service is indeed $25 a year, and lets you listen to unlimited amounts of music, than this is a gamebreaker and would stop music piracy in its tracks.

Think about it - this used to be the cost of a single CD! Netflix, by comparison, charges $108/year for its offering.

More details about what the $25/year gets you is needed before one can make a definitive judgement.

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I think the $25 per year is for access to the cloud service. You'll still have to buy your tracks.

On the surface $25/year seems too low to cover a music subscription service but there are about 140 million iOS devices out there and probably 50 million Macs? If 50% of them were to signup for iCloud and pay $25/year with 70% going to the labels/publishers they would make about $1.7 billion dollars. The entire digital music market was $2.2B in 2010. It's definitely in the ballpark to replace existing iTunes music sales. Apple may have sold the labels/publishers on the idea that a low cost service that gives people what they really want, unlimited access to endless amounts of music, is viable if it's priced low enough. It would probably turn a lot of career pirates into paying customers.

You're probably mostly double counting, unless that's $25/year/device - mac users generally have iOS devices and may well have multiple iOS gadgets accumulated over the years. (There are a lot of iPhone users who don't use a mac, but not the other way around.)

ah, my understanding of icloud was that it is a cloud based locker for storing itunes purchases, and syncing across all devices linked with the account. no actual content included..

if however you're right, $25 a year for an unlimited music library.. that would be game changing indeed. it would basically end the need to pirate, certainly.

What would be great is if iCloud is part of the long-rumored iOS 5 wireless syncing and updating for iPhones/iPads/iPods. One of the best things about my Android phone is that if I have a problem or want to mess around I don't need physical access to my computer to reload everything. While some apps, like Plants v. Zombies, are limited to WiFi download only, most are more than happy to use 3G.

Even if it doesn't include apps at launch, I think iCloud rather than iTunes gives Apple the flexibility to add whatever type of data they want in the future.

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