Apple Pushing for $5 Beats Music Subscriptions as Spotify Debuts Discounted Family Plan

beatsAs previously reported, Apple plans to relaunch its recently acquired Beats Music subscription early next year and hopes to offer the service with with a lowered monthly cost. According to new "industry scuttlebut" relayed to Re/code, Apple is pushing music labels to cut streaming music subscription prices in half to $5 per month.

The logic of Apple’s argument, relayed by people who’ve heard the pitch secondhand: Apple’s best iTunes buyers spend about $60 a year on downloaded music — $5 a month. So if subscription services dropped that low, any download buyers that switched over to the streaming model would generate just as much revenue for the music labels. And, more important, the market of potential subscribers would get much larger.

Any reduction offered to Apple would be available to other services, making it less likely music industry executives would approve of a 50 percent discount. Re/code notes Apple will more likely meet the music labels in the middle with a monthly fee in the range of $7-8.

While Apple negotiates the terms for its Beats Music streaming service, rival Spotify is upping the ante with a new Spotify Family plan. Similar to Rdio's Unlimited Family plan, Spotify Family allows a premium subscriber to add up to four additional members for $4.99/month each, a 50 percent discount off the regular $9.99 individual premium plan. Spotify announced the family plans today and will roll then out globally in the coming weeks.

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Top Rated Comments

JBaker122586 Avatar
110 months ago
I wouldn't pay 1 cent per month for it. There's free music everywhere.

Who would buy a loaf of bread when you can just steal it?
Score: 33 Votes (Like | Disagree)
fa8362 Avatar
110 months ago
I wouldn't pay 1 cent per month for it. There's free music everywhere.
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
RedOrchestra Avatar
110 months ago
Apple, once again, wringing and stretching the content suppliers BUT holding firm on their profit margins. Pretty soon there won't be any content.
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
decimortis Avatar
110 months ago
Who would buy a loaf of bread when you can just steal it?

While I agree with your sentiment, I'm not entirely sure he was talking about stealing music. I'm listening to free music streaming on Songza right now. The odd ad here and there keeps it at an affordable zero dollars per month.

D.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
macduke Avatar
110 months ago
There's no need to steal it. It's freely available and legal. TV too.

Yeah but some of us hate ads. There's nothing like streaming Christmas music on Pandora on Christmas morning and having a mature-rated Trojan condom commercial full of questionable innuendo and "noises" blaring over the speakers. The awkward silence as teens, parents, and grandparents sit around trying not to make eye contact with anyone else in the room is extremely fun and anxiety inducing. If only that would happen again this Christmas. Alas, my brother-in-law now pays for streaming so we're good to go.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
PBG4 Dude Avatar
110 months ago
Wow, the biggest music spenders on iTunes buy the equivalent of a $10 CD every 2 months. I remember buying an album a week in high school! :eek:
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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