I’m impressed by Napster of late. They recently announced that users can now listen to every track in their catalog for free, up to five times. After five times, if you want to listen to it again, you need to either buy the track, or subscribe to one of Napster’s monthly services. In the meantime, as you’re listening to your free tracks online, you’re being exposed to various ads, whose revenue is then apparently shared with the music industry as its payment for the use of the free music. (Napster’s FAQ on its free music model is here.)
This seems to me to be a brilliant music model: the few second snippets offered in other music libraries are not enticing enough to cause me to browse to find new music which I might purchase from their stores. Napster, through use of this ability to listen for free, as well as its playlists, encourages me and makes it enjoyable to browse for those songs I would be willing to buy. No longer am I consciously shopping: I’m browsing, and impulse buying.

I wonder if the 5 listen limit is too high, actually. New songs only stay in popularity a short while. And there’s quite a breadth of material on Napster. Seems I could always be listening to new and interesting things, without ever really hitting the 5 song limit. Now, I’d need to be perpetually connected to an Internet connection, else I might want that song in my portable player. But I generally AM perpetually connected to an Internet connection… my portable player serves me at the gym, but not many other places. Napster might consider lowering that limit to 3… if I’m willing to listen to a song more than 3 times, I probably oughta pay for it…