I looked at it briefly, but haven’t actually downloaded anything.
Do you think it will be successful?
I like the idea, I guess, but I wonder if a buck a song is a little high. Not too high in a “how dare they–music should be free” kind of way, but too high in a “wow, a buck a song, that might start to add up” kind of way.
Constantine
A buck a song is high? Not IMHO. That seems a very reasonable price to pay for a song you know you want and that you know you want to listen to. And I have a lot of albums that I like two or three songs on–so most of the money I spent on the CD was wasted, in a sense.
Contrarywise, note that if you purchase by album, the per-song cost is usually much lower.
Sez Pod, who has dropped $25 bucks on the service so far. I wonder if there are drawbacks I haven’t discovered?
I’ve only dropped $5 on the service so far, but that’s because they haven’t got “Weird Al” Yankovic or Future Sound of London yet.
But yeah, it’s realllllllllly easy to blow lotsa money at that thing. It’s the next digital crack, IMO.
I’ve only spent $2 so far, but that bought me an entire album. Because it’s split into just two tracks (“This Side” and “The Other Side”), the entire classic Firesign Theater album Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers can be had for a measley $1.98. Since the CD costs $10 on Amazon, I think that’s a steal.
I spent $12 and I freaking love it. I mean it downloads so fast and then I put the tune on my iPod and I’m ready to go… I know I sound like an Apple commercial but it really kicks ass.
I’ve spent $11 so far (one song + one album), and I love it too. Once the selection of songs available expands, it’s going to become really addictive! A buck a song will definitely add up, but the price is relatively fair, especially considering how much of that goes to the artist and the label.
Will it be successful? Maybe. I certainly hope so. The first week numbers sounded really good (over 200,000 downloads in the first day alone, which is half of what all the competeing services did all of last year). Obviously, they can’t keep those numbers up, but if that’s an indication of its popularity, that’s a good sign. And I’ve heard from a lot of Windows users who are jealous, so when it eventually gets opened up for Windows, it will only help. But it doesn’t take a genius to realize that it may be difficult to convince many people to pay for what they can already get for free in the comfort of their own homes, even if it is stealing.
And as a sidenote, I really want one of those slick new iPods to go along with it, but I just can’t justify laying down that kind of cash when I’ve got a perfectly good (albeit smaller capicity) iPod already.
I’ve purchased three songs so far, and I like it. That said, they really, really, really need to get a better selection of songs on there. I spent more time sending them requests for songs I’m looking for than actually downloading music.
Apple reports one million songs sold in the first week.
For comparison purposes, Universal Music had deemed that if Apple could sell one million songs in the first month, then it’d be a success.
A problem easily solved by giving your current iPod to a deserving individualcoughto mecough. 
Unfortunately, I can only shop the iTMS on my home computer with a slow dial-up connection, so I have only gotten 1 song (actually a movement of a Mozart symphony), mostly to see how well the process works. It’s a good thing it takes so long for me to download anything, or I would be addicted by now (and more than 99 cents poorer).
I’m totally addicted. I’ve replaced most of my illicit MP3 with legit M4Ps, and have also bought a ton of other music by those artists, and others. I never would have popped for full CDs for most of this stuff. It’s great, but addictive. I’ve spent over $150. I’ve spent nothing the last four days, so I think I won’t spend myself into a hole. But damn, this is great. This is how i’ve always wanted to buy music. Thank you, Apple!
I also replaced my old, original 5 GB iPod Napoleon with a new 15 GB model I’ve dubbed Bismark. Yea!
I’ve downloaded two songs, and I can definitely see the addictive potential.
For those that don’t have access, here’s how it works: You set up an account with Apple, and give them your credit card info and everything. Then whenever you find a song you like, you just click “Buy Song” and it downloads it.
I think the files on there are better than the common MP3s available off of Gnutella or other file-sharing services, which are often somewhat corrupted and “pop”.
Not that I’d know anything about that.
According to news releases, Apple sold 1,000,000 songs in the first week. Not bad at all. Sure, that’ll settle down some. I could see 100,000 songs a day being the sustainable rate with their current base of users (which is limited not only to Mac folk, but to Jaguar folk with iTunes 4, and among them, mostly just folk with broadband, I’d wager). That’s a sliver of the total computing pie.
Once they roll this thing out for Windows (please, Steve, at the WWDC), that could easily create a sustainable rate of 1,000,000 downloads a day, and then upwards from there as people look to the iTMS as the source for their music.
heh. My 5 GB iPod is “Runaround Sue”. Maybe we should start a “What’s your iPod’s name?” thread…
I just contributed my first share…
woke up early this morning to download the new Jack Johnson album…
I downloaded the whole thing in like 5 minutes…
and then to my ipod in about 10 seconds…
gotta love apple…