Rags Gupta introduced me to a new term, music metabolism, via his blog the other day. Like many, for years I have been thinking about the behavioural aspects of and appetites for music consumption, I’m a bit embarrassed to never have thought to use the term metabolism. Music metabolism is the next big variable.
In describing his consumption behavior after having got an iPod, he said that his “music metabolism” increased. Since having his collection digitized and easily available on the iPod, he listened to more ‘deep tracks’ that he hadn’t listened to in a long time (courtesy of the shuffle function). However, he soon got sick of his library of tracks and wanted to hear new/different music.
Methinks the business model for music delivery will not be so quickly solved and the evolving nature of our collective music metabolism is significant. And it’s clear music metabolism is part of what drives p2p. Interestingly, the ownership model felt like the right model in the beginning, it’s the one I favoured since the mid 1990s when it became clear music downloading was the future. In recent months I’ve come to better understand my own music metabolism and after ripping my CDs to my iPod, purchasing an obscene number of tracks from iTunes and listening to more music more often than I have at any time before. I’m wondering if I’m beginning to experience remorse for all of those purchases. I’m seriously reconsidering my position regarding music rental. In thinking about my reservations for making the switch to rental and the best I can come up with is uncertainty.
When you purchase a CD you are fairly certain you will have it in the future. With music rental there is less certainly the music will always be available under that model, you don’t get the option to own and that’s what makes you uneasy. What happens if the labels decide to no renew their agreements with the rental intermediaries? In that case you not only no longer have your music and have no option (below the then current market price) to buy it, you feel like a sucker.
Methinks that’s what keeps the the balance towards the purchase model though if the rental price is low enough and I can play the rented music on my iPod I’ll probably either partially or fully switch to rental. If I have to bin my iPod and purchase another device to play the rented music before my iPod battery needs replacement I’m probably still unlikely to start renting. But then again my music metabolism my override other variables. Apple, are you listening?
Anyway, go read Rags’ blog entry, it’s late and I’m rambling. I’ll write something more coherent on the price of uncertainty in the rental model and the disconnect from the market that has migrated from the labels to the online purchase and rental distributors another time when I’m operating on more sleep. The music distribution problem is far from solved and if anything it’s more complicated than ever, making p2p appear the path of least resistance still/again/yet. I can’t imagine the transition to electronic distribution could have gone much worse than it did.
