Ask HN: Lala Land Grab?

I just had a thought. Apple bought Lala, and I've spent probably about $50-$100 on Lala for music. This is a pretty big music library since albums are so cheap. I've gotten in the flow of listening to Lala every day and I'm always adding more music. I love it.

Now, the speculation is that Apple is going to turn Lala into a streaming iTunes product. Knowing Apple's iTunes price points, I'm very skeptical that they will keep the prices where they are on Lala. With the inevitable iPhone app, Apple is surely going to position the iTunes streaming service as just as good, if not better than buying the music as it is now. To see them then offer a 10x price cut over buying the track in full would just cannibalize the iTunes store.

It seems clear Apple will be stuck grandfathering in everyone's Lala collection, otherwise they'll alienate all current Lala users from iTunes (myself included.) Nevermind the horrible press they'd get if suddenly hundreds of thousands of dollars of music is ripped from the hands of Lala users. But, they are going to almost certainly have higher prices for future purchases than Lala has now.

My conclusion: it might be time to buy as much cheap Lala music as you can until they can launch the iTunes streaming service. Worst case, you're out $100 or whatever you want to blow. (If its any consolation, if you lose this money because Apple screws everyone over, Apple will probably go down with you!) Best case, you end up with a nice music library you can listen to anywhere that will go up in value tenfold in a few weeks.

Also, if you haven't uploaded your music collection to Lala, you should probably do it now. I'd be shocked if Apple grandfathers in uploaded tracks too, but who knows!