Yes, I have a backup. I have three. I run time machine, I do occasional static backups into a hard drive that’s not usual plugged in, and I recently bought a subscription to Crash plan. I just think that “right before upgrading” might be a good time to do a static backup.
I feel your pain. At the end of April, I begrudgingly signed up for a year of Quicken, though I hope that some entrepreneur will see an opening and create a standalone product that will be what Quicken used to be. I only use it to balance my checkbook so it’s hardly worth more than a buck or two a month.
Even Microsoft is making its Office products subscription based. I own 2017, which was the last year of standalone, and hope it’ll last for another decade or so. I liked some of the earlier upgrades to Excel and MS, but frankly, I only need my word processor to do simple tasks, I don’t need to share files among multiple computers, and I only use 5% of Excel’s bells and whistles. So an annual subscription is a ripoff, IMO.
I can’t tell, but it sounds like maybe your computer is a PC. iTunes on Windows isn’t going anywhere and isn’t changing. It’s status quo for iTunes on Windows.
On a Mac, you can backup your iPod, iPhone, iPad, etc locally just as before but from the Finder instead of iTunes itself. In fact, speaking from a functionality standpoint, practically nothing is changing.
You will still be able to purchase individual tracks from the iTunes Store which will be available within the Music app. If you’re on a PC, nothing in iTunes is changing.
You aren’t losing access to the ones you’ve already bought.
No offense, but you’d lose that bet. The fact that downloads — as both individual tracks and full albums — account for a total of only 10% (and falling) of music industry revenue while subscriptions count for almost 50% (and rising fast) shows that customers place higher value on everything the subscription services provides than simply purchasing downloads.
I’m obviously on the pro-subscription side of this, but I do have to point out for fairness’s sake that people don’t always make the smartest use of their money. In this case, I think they are–unless they just listen over and over to the same 40 songs that were popular when they were in high school, in which case they’d be better off to buy them and save their monthly subscription fees.
What do you mean about “everything the subscription services provide”? Playlists? Suggesting music you might like?
Great, but that doesn’t seem to be the story here.
Yes. Curation, discovery, friends playlists, stream 50 million songs anyplace you are, etc. Whatever stuff you don’t get with a single song purchase.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but if you buy something from iTunes, you can download it and, even if Apple disappears completely, you will still have the files on your computer to listen to forever. Now, the subscription service is entirely different. Stop subscribing and you’re out of all the music that you’ve added to your library from that source.
That’s true for music purchases, but TV and movies are still (as everyone else does) encumbered with DRM.
FWIW, Apple has said they won’t delete local copies of your media.
The other obvious downsides to a subscription service is: 1) The monthly fee can go up at the whim of the provider; 2) Artists/record companies can decline to participate. I’ve already heard grumblings that artists’ cut from streaming is horrible.
I hadn’t heard about Quicken, since traditionally I wait until they cut support for the version I’m using before springing for an upgrade, and I tend to ignore the deluge of “UPGRADE NOW” of emails they’re always sending. :mad: Honestly, I’ve gotten to the point that I only use it every few months to make sure all of my accounts are up to date in case something happens to my statements. I use my bank’s app just about every day to either check balances or pay bills, so pretty much the only advantage to Quicken at this point is seeing everything in one place. I also use Chronicle to keep track of bills; I’ve been very pleased with it. It’s not meant to take the place of Quicken though.
I know I’m in the minority, but I have a handful of songs that won’t be found on any subscription, and many (to my knowledge) have never seen any kind of release on physical media. I’ll listen to a streaming service (usually Google Play Music) now and then, but the only thing I’m subscribed to is SiriusXM – and not at the tier where you can access online streaming.
Meanwhile, my mother (who I should mention is an Apple fangirl) saw the news and offered to buy me a new iPod and car stereo for Christmas, so that’s her take on the matter.
Those don’t disappear if you do subscribe to a service. I subscribe to Apple Music and my music library at the time was uploaded to the cloud. I have access to them along with whatever I’ve added via subscription. It’s still the vast majority of my music library,
Only if you consider .0035 cents per play to be lousy pay.
The order of magnitude is .0035 dollars per play, or 0.35 cents.
I don’t believe it’s nearly that generous. 0.0035 cents sounds more accurate. That would be 0.000035 dollars per play.
(checking…)
Riemann is correct, I apologize. My payments per stream vary from $0.02 to the lofty sum of $0.14.