Jobs: People STILL Don't Want to Rent Music

Just in case you're wondering if Steve Jobs has changed his mind about offering music on the iTunes Store in any form other than purchased downloads, here's areality check, courtesy of Reuters:

Not gonna happen.

"Never say never, but customers don't seem to be interestedin it," Jobs told Reuters in an interview after Apple reportedblow-out quarterly results. "The subscription model has failedso far."

Are you sure Steve? I mean, mayb...

"People want to own their music," he said.

Cool. We hear you. I do think Steve is basically right, of course, as I'll explain after the jump.

People do have an interest in sampling a wide variety of music, butmostly they can tell what they like from 30-second samples. Ifanything, renting music is a rip-off unless you're a high-volume user.
It's much like Netflix. If you're receiving, viewing and returning yourDVDs the day they come in the mail, it's one of the best deals in allof entertainment.

If, on the other hand (and on my hand, unfortunately), you take weeksto watch the DVDs currently on hand, it's a dramatic waste of money.
There might be a place for subscription models of music downloading,
but I think unless you can keep a certain number of sampled songs onceyou kill your subscription, it's largely empty. Maybe it's just timefor companies to create a music subscription service that costs $15 amonth for unlimited access. The only way I'm interested in this serviceis if I get to keep my favorite 10 songs from all the ones I downloadedat the end of the month -- otherwise, it's not really my music.

Thanks, Evan!

Image via Yahoo.