At issue is Apple's business model of selling songs versus Napster, Yahoo!, and other online services that also offer users the ability to rent songs. With that business model, users can typically download any and every song they want for a fixed monthly fee, but the catch is that those songs are only playable as long as the subscription in current.
It's a classic tradeoff of permanence vs. quantity, but Chris Gorog, CEO of Napster, told USA Today that he thinks subscriptions will beat out purchases before all is said and done.
"You can fit 10,000 songs on [a 40 gigabyte iPod]," Mr. Gorog told USA Today. " [But] to do that would cost you $10,000 if you bought the songs from Apple. With our plan, customers can get 10,000 songs on their device for $180 a year. It's an enormous value."
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