Robert X Cringely offered up a new view on where Google is going.
His view seems to be that Google will eventually be in control of much of the internet experience though their new google cache, Yahoo will probably win the online music price war, Napster will die and Apple will offer a new mac mini based movie experience using a wireless unit that plugs into the TV and decodes H.264 in hardware.
It sounds exciting, if slightly unexpected. I still don’t believe that people want subscription music. At least with iTunes, I know that I own the music that I buy. With subscription services I don’t own the music and I have to keep paying to listen whether I listen or not.
This is one of the reasons I cancelled my subscription to Screenselect. It’s a great service and works well, except that I just didn’t seem to watch the dvds. If I own something I can listen or watch it in the future. If I subscribe I have to watch it immediately. I think that represents a large barrier and I think eventually outright purchase will probably win. This is especially likely if content prices decline and producers realize that more money can be made by outright sale. The DVD market has been moving towards encouraging outright sale for some time. Warner Bros being the first major studio to deliberately reduce DVD prices to squeeze the rental market and encourage purchase of retail DVDs.
Who knows how it will turn out, but at the end of the day I want to own stuff, not rent it.
Owning is certainly better than renting – when the item is a song, which I’d like to replay at least hundreds of times in at least dozens of places. Video’s a different deal, though. People ‘rent’ HBO and Cinemax bigtime. And rent movies from the video store – to watch once or twice, always at home.