Emusic a la carte

matthewsalibi

So I came on emusers to see what people think of a la carte pricing, and it looks like I'm the first! (Unless people are already posting about it in another thread...)

http://www.emusic.com/support/members-introducing-emusics-new-a-la-carte-store/

So, what do we think? Anyone see this as an alluring new feature?

Personally, it seems like eMusic is rarely cheaper anymore than the other options, between amazon sales, Guvera, and my local library's Freegal (anyone else use this? It's great-- three free downloads a week with your library card, lots of Sony stuff and stuff Guvera doesn't have...)

...and the kicker is that ALL of those services have better default sound quality than eMusic. I've got iTunes match, so I guess it doesn't matter that much, but it still makes me grit my teeth a little. But I've (intermittently) kept my $6.49 eMusic account anyway, mostly because of the occasional twitter giveaway that makes it worthwhile.

Penny for your thoughts.

Germanprof

Very first reactions:
- citing .49 a track is as ever partially disingenuous. True in that there are still plenty of real bargains to be found. False in that many new additions are within a dollar of Amazon prices.
- seems like a smart move for them in that it allows them to say "see, we sell music, become a member and you'll get an even better deal", instead of "see, we sell music, but you have to be a member to use us at all." In that sense it might allure some folk.
- OTOH, there's an imaginable possibility that this could eventually undercut my remaining reasons for staying at emusic - availability of some small electronic labels not widely available through other services at good prices. If my member savings on the few albums I need emusic for become less than what I'd save by not subscribing and just paying a bit more for fewer albums that I want, that might actually be the straw that breaks the emusic habit's back.

matthewsalibi

Yeah, I agree with both of those other-hands.

The membership model has seemed a little outmoded for a while now, in comparison to all the innovative ways music is being sold/streamed/given away.

But on the other hand, eMusic can't usually compete in terms of price anymore.

Now, maybe a lot of people are less price-sensitive than I am (...but I expect those people are happy for the convenience of paying $9.99 on iTunes and don't really want to be fussed with shopping around/downloading a godawful semi-functional download manager.)

Also, not to further attempt to hijack my own thread, but if eMusic wanted to a value-add, my vote would be to bring back re-downloads. They were pioneers in letting folks re-download their purchases, but it seems like the rest of the industry has caught up... and left them behind.

matthewsalibi

So, I tried purchasing an album despite only having $1.25 left in credit, on the assumption that it would ask me to pay the difference a la carte. Nope. Still wants me to either buy a $10 booster pack or upgrade my subscription. So now I'm really scratching my head-- does that members can't use partial credit to buy an album a la carte? Is a la carte pricing just for non-members? Wow, would that ever be stupid.

Muggsy

Honestly, between Guvera (free), Bandcamp (direct payment to artists and lossless DLs available), and an occasional purchase from one of the usual suspects (Amazon, 7Digital, etc.), I don't miss eMusic at all. I let my subscription lapse probably 18 months ago, and re-upped a couple of times for a month when they offered a good deal, but they've got nothing I can't get elsewhere, probably cheaper and certainly with better sound quality. At this point I'm not even curious about what's going on over there.

luddite

An interesting development for eMu but it ultimately fails to provide me any reason to divert any of the $ I spend on digital downloads towards the eMu coffers.

I checked a couple albums and compared eMu's prices to Amazon's... in every case Amazon was cheaper or equal to eMu. No point in buying from eMu if I can buy from Amazon (I realized that being located in the US Amazon is a viable option for me while it isn't available to utilize for others):

1. Much better downloader at Amazon
2. Music purchased from Amazon is saved in Amazon's Mp3 cloud-thing as well as downloaded to my local PC. eMu just lets me download my music purchases.
3. I can re-download from Amazon's Mp3 cloud-thing (in fact I just had to do this as I realized a track from one of my earlier Amazon purchases had errored off originally and was never downloaded when I initially purchased & downloaded it - I didn't have to contact anyone to get the track re-queued or re-set or credits added to my account to allow me to re-purchase the track. Didn't have to write up an email and then wait for a response.... just logged onto my Amazon account and went to my Mp3 cloud-thing and re-downloaded the missing track).

Price comparisons:
The Laughing Man - Yazbek, David (eMu: 9.99 Ama: 8.99)
Kilimanjaro - Teardrop Explodes (eMu: 9.99 Ama: 9.49)
My Nation Underground - Julian Cope (eMu: 8.91 Ama: 8.91)
My War - Black Flag (eMu: 8.91 Ama: 8.91)
Muscle Of Love - Alice Cooper (eMu: 8.99 Ama: 8.91)
Darkness On The Edge Of Town (2010 Remastered Version) - Bruce Springsteen (eMu: 9.99 Ama: 9.99)
Guess Who This Is - Ed's Redeeming Qualities (eMu: 9.99 Ama: 8.99)
Manic Compression - Quicksand (eMu: 9.99 Ama: 9.49)

Bad Thoughts

WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO EMU'S PRICES?!!??!!?? I went to see if I might pick up some

Doofy

Maybe I'm missing something, but what's the downside? As a member, this just lets me go over my monthly allowance if I want--eg, to add a couple bucks to finish an album. Or to buy something now by spending an extra 5.99 (or whatever) rather than waiting for next month or buying a booster. Yes? No?

Just looked at a few albums from my S4L. Three albums with member prices of 5.99 had nonmember prices of 7.99 to 9.99. Two albums on small labels were marked for members only. A recent ECM album at member price 8.99 was 11.99 for nonmembers.

ETA: Oh, so you can't just add another buck or two, or buy an additional album at member prices. >:P

Germanprof

While it is absolutely true that emusic is not an across the board saving over Amazon any more, price comparisons on albums still depend on what albums/labels you are looking at. So to take one example I bought recently:
Through the Lines by offthesky - Amazon $3.96 Bandcamp $6.68, emusic $2.70 (members)
I also just bought the new Billow Observatory album from emusic for I think $6.74 or some number close to that. it's $12 on bandcamp, $8.99 on Amazon.
The bargains have to be cherry picked now, and are dwindling, but they are still there.

amclark2

Washed Out - Life of Leisure (which (lamely) I want because it has the Portlandia theme on it; I already bought that song from amazon, and sometimes play it on repeat - I love that song; and I finally understand the term chillwave) - "we're sorry. This album is temporarily available to members only."

jonahpwll

While it's sort of its separate thing from what most people want, much of the modern jazz that runs through new releases is often far cheaper on emusic than it is on amazon, itunes, or even bandcamp (much of the time, sometimes it's the same, occasionally a bc NYOP album wins out obviously).

For someone like myself who buy 95% or more of modern jazz newly released, emusic has a huge upside from a price comparison standpoint. It would thrill me to no end (for many reasons, all of them obvious) were emusic to attempt to forge further into the jazz genre and attempt to become something of the vanguard retailer of modern jazz.

But I do recognize that my experiences via modern jazz do not reflect those experiences of most other people.

I don't see a downside to emusic doing the ala carte thing.

Doofy

I don't see a downside to emusic doing the ala carte thing.

Nor is there really any upside, if you're a member. At least that's so if prices don't gone up. Seems like main goal is to get people in the door in the hope they'll see the member prices and subscribe.

My experience matches Jonah's - most of the stuff I'm interested in is significantly lower-priced at eMusic. Even more so with grandfathered bonus. Of course, lately my eMu purchases have shifted more to smaller labels not available at Guvera.

Germanprof

smaller labels not available at Guvera

This is still a kind of catch 22 for emusic, isn't it? After all the major label addition stresses, the result (because of the concomitant pricing shifts and the rise of other services) is still that emusic makes most sense to customers who want particular stuff from small labels. I guess from their point of view they can (maybe legitimately) hope that even if their a la carte prices are essentially the same as iTunes, some folk will buy from them anyway just because of customer distribution. (Places without the best prices apparently still sell things).

Doofy

I should add, not available at Guvera (ie, for free), and cheaper on eMu than anywhere else. Grandfather or no, if eMu prices were the same as Amazon, I'd split,

jackedUPjazz

Am I understanding this correctly, I no longer have to sign up for a membership and lose credits every month to download music and I can buy a la carte just like at Amazon or Google.

And now there is a confirmation screen before you have to commit to your purchase, just like every other reputable merchant on the interweb

Those guys sure are out there on the bleeding edge.

If they had done that years ago I might still be a member

Yes Matt a few of us were using Freegal but to be honest I don't think I have logged in and downloaded anything in over a year.

Plong42

I got an email with new and notable classical releases at eMu, one had 99 cent tracks, one had $1.29 tracks (2Cellos)! But when I signed in the price dropped to 89 cents for the 2Cellos. Membership doth have its privileges, I suppose.

choiceweb0pen0

Are there perhaps two sets of prices now, one for members and one for non-members? I only say this from looking at an album from a small band, Air Review, that was maybe a week ago, About $4.41, but now it comes up as $8.91 when I log in, but when I log out, it goes back down to $4.41

Germanprof

@cw00 yes, that's the new system.

choiceweb0pen0

Okay, then color me not impressed, at least not when the price is too close to elsewhere like Amazon, with all its other benefits not found on eMusic.

greg

We've not got the new system yet - we are, in effect, still on the old credit system as everything is 49p a track, other than some longer tracks are album only, but still 49p. But because of my bonus I only pay 20p anyway, so for me it is a no-brainer, as long as I find enough to download. No problem there now with our recent ECM drop, but of course, those with access to Guvera get those free anyway!

Brighternow

Members will also continue to have access to all our discovery features.

- I wonder what this means . . .
No infinite exploration for non members ?

Doofy

eMusic Drops Subscriber Paywall, Hopes For Renaissance

Nothin' new, except some Klein quotage.

cafreema

Sigh, "loosing relevence as streaming music takes center stage."

Craig

elwoodicious

@craig, my wife has given up her eMusic sub and has stopped buying at Amazon and iTunes since she got an Rdio sub; all her listening now is streamed, for better or worse.

cafreema

So what you're saying is that eMusic 'loosed' 'relevence' with her?

(It was a sigh at the horrid spelling/grammar at hypebot).

Craig

elwoodicious

Ha! Well, yeah, it seems that she has divested herself of "ownership" of albums. On the surface, it seems fairly liberating, though I tend to define myself by my horde I don't think I can head down that path fully.

choiceweb0pen0

I like well spelled hype as well.

Lowlife

As we in the UK are not subject to this yet I am keeping away from E Music for another couple of months till my hold expires.

I think what will happen is that the UK prices will go up, I cannot see that companies selling a three track album will allow it to go on the market for £1.26 and a 10 track costing £4.20 which will undercut both Amazon and I Tunes.

The other thing I noticed on the boards is the fact that the downloads are ba complete mess, I had the odd issue with downloads last time and till they get it right I am not going near them. For me Bandcamp is far more exciting and with the new member lists I have found loads of new great music which is enough to keep me going.