Amid the hype for the "not available at store near you" service called Spotify, one often reads of its promise to be the next "iTunes killer" — though one also wonders why it's really necessary to kill iTunes. Granted, I don't use iTunes for "purchasing" music much any more, but it's still a very useful program, and of course essential for sync'ing up my iPhone.
So it's interesting to get Techdirt's take on the obvious question, "why would Apple approve a Spotify app for the iPhone?" and here is the most obvious answer:
I would bet that the folks at Apple are pretty damn sure that they can outlast and out-innovate Spotify. Spotify hasn't shown much ability to make money, and while it has become a press darling as a music app, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Apple's quietly been working on its own version of a Spotify-like offering built directly into iTunes. And, given Apple's standard operating procedure, if that's the case, there's a good chance that the Spotify-like iTunes will be even better than Spotify itself.
In other words: "iTunes" is the "iTunes killer." And Spotify goes down with it…
Let's give credit where it's due: iTunes has played a pivotal role in the way music is offered and delivered in the Music 3.0 era; it has pursuaded a vast legion of music lovers of the ease and advantage of downloading their music collections rather than buying and ripping them. That's a huge — and very successful — exercise in consumer behavior modification and an essential phase in the transition from Music 2.0 to Music 3.0.
iTunes has gotten a lot of mileage out of the "purchase per unit," product-based delivery model. All the while, Steve Jobs and his minions have insisted that listeners (I hate calling us "consumers") are somehow compelled to "own" our very own collections of music. And the relatively modest acceptance of the subscription services like Rhapsody and Napster would seem to affirm that assessment.
But just you wait: Someday — probably sooner rather than later — Apple will begin converting the faithful. You'll see stylish ads from Apple that say "for the price of a single CD, for the cost of just 10 tracks per month, you can now have access to millions of tracks…and listen to whatever you want whenever and wherever you want (somebody should trademark that…)
And millions of iTunes users will slap their foreheads and exclaim, "well, fucking DUH!"