I'm kinda bemused at the idea that 5GB is enough for my music collection or even some reasonable portion of it. I mean think about it: who here really gets by with a 4GB (or even 8GB) MP3 player?
I'd probably need 200GB ($200/year). A more reasonable person would probably be fine with 20 or 50GB ($20/50 per year).
I'm not sure I understand the business model and the hype behind cloud syncing of music though. What is the point? If you're going to copy onto an MP3 player you'll need a local copy. So the use cases are:
1. On the Web;
2. On networked mobiles; and
3. As a form of backup.
Well (1) is covered quite well with Grooveshark. I can find most things I want there and it's an awful lot cheaper (up to free).
(2) I don't think makes a lot of sense given the high cost of mobile data. Maybe in the future mobile data will be an awful lot cheaper but there are fundamental limitations with wireless bandwidth that I think will make that very difficult.
There are many solutions for (3). In terms of raw storage, Amazon's prices are pretty cheap. But backup misses the point entirely I think.
When I buy digital content of any sort I don't want to back it up. I want to be able to recover it easily and simply. iTunes for example only allows downloading movies once (is that right?). If so, I'm just never going to buy movies that way. If I pay for it and can watch what I download any number of times, why can't I download it again if I accidentally lose it?
So iTunes and Amazon MP3s need this feature: log onto my account and click a link that says "download all purchased tracks".
At that point I don't need backup of any kind (for my digital content).
I think the only business model that makes sense is flat-rate subscriptions. You don't store your own music. The provider simply has all the music. This solves a lot of storage problems for the provider (meaning 1000 people share the same copy of the song rather than each uploading and storing it individually).
I can see how they'll get some scale here by having duplicates of some songs (particularly iTunes and Amazon bought MP3s). It'd be interesting to know how much saved space they have from deduplication.
At this point, it looks to me like Amazon is going to offer an Android device in the not-so-distant future. They're quite clearly following the Apple/iTunes/iPod strategy: "Get the software pieces out there and performing so integration with the final hardware is seamless and painless".
So the fact that it duplicates some parts of existing software doesn't much matter. What matters is whether it's a focused and refined first-party solution for that eventual device.
It simply isn't competing for the people who know about and downloaded and set up an account for Dropbox/Grooveshark/etc. It would be the built-in feature that's sitting there waiting for you, automatically integrated to your existing Amazon account and "Just Works".
Also, the small size seems (to me) to be a beta sort of limitation. I'd be surprised if the final hardware launch doesn't include an upgrade to 50 or more gig of space just for buying the hardware.
So, yes, it really is just a sort of Grooveshark/Dropbox/iTunes-Cloud-Sync sort of solution that doesn't knock anyone's socks off via the feature checklist. But if the integration with the final device is tight, I don't think that matters at all.
Well, all the songs you buy at amazon get stored for free. So that addresses some of the points you made.
Since the storage gets upgraded to 20Gb after you buy an album it would be at least enough space for my music.
I think Amazon is giving us another way do to it, not the best or only way to do it. I would probably put 5GB of my favorite music to listen to when I don't happen to have my iPod around...and continue to sync files on Dropbox.
I'd probably need 200GB ($200/year). A more reasonable person would probably be fine with 20 or 50GB ($20/50 per year).
I'm not sure I understand the business model and the hype behind cloud syncing of music though. What is the point? If you're going to copy onto an MP3 player you'll need a local copy. So the use cases are:
1. On the Web;
2. On networked mobiles; and
3. As a form of backup.
Well (1) is covered quite well with Grooveshark. I can find most things I want there and it's an awful lot cheaper (up to free).
(2) I don't think makes a lot of sense given the high cost of mobile data. Maybe in the future mobile data will be an awful lot cheaper but there are fundamental limitations with wireless bandwidth that I think will make that very difficult.
There are many solutions for (3). In terms of raw storage, Amazon's prices are pretty cheap. But backup misses the point entirely I think.
When I buy digital content of any sort I don't want to back it up. I want to be able to recover it easily and simply. iTunes for example only allows downloading movies once (is that right?). If so, I'm just never going to buy movies that way. If I pay for it and can watch what I download any number of times, why can't I download it again if I accidentally lose it?
So iTunes and Amazon MP3s need this feature: log onto my account and click a link that says "download all purchased tracks".
At that point I don't need backup of any kind (for my digital content).
I think the only business model that makes sense is flat-rate subscriptions. You don't store your own music. The provider simply has all the music. This solves a lot of storage problems for the provider (meaning 1000 people share the same copy of the song rather than each uploading and storing it individually).
I can see how they'll get some scale here by having duplicates of some songs (particularly iTunes and Amazon bought MP3s). It'd be interesting to know how much saved space they have from deduplication.
Anyway, am I missing something here?