Most of the music streaming services available in the market (well at least the good ones) are practically priced the same, at $9.99 per month, for unlimited, ad-free streaming with option to listen offline, and other similar features. Sources are saying that Amazon is looking at launching two new music services by next month: one that will be similar to Spotify, Apple Music, etc, while the other one is cheaper by 50% but will only be available on their Echo player/connected speaker.
The first one, the $10/month music streaming service, has actually been bandied around for some time now. It especially makes sense after Amazon launched a stand-alone video subscription service earlier this year at $9 a month. Amazon Prime Subscribers do get both video and music for free as part of their subscription, but the online retail giant also wants to reach the market segment that doesn’t want the entire Prime package, but just maybe the video or the music streaming.
What is new in the rumor mill is that they are also looking at a cheaper $5 subscription model, which will still have all the features that the $10 service will have, except that you will only be able to listen to it on the Amazon Echo powered by their AI software Alexa. They have reportedly sold a million units already, so if all of those will subscribe to the exclusive music streaming service, then that’s a pretty good number. But the fact that you won’t be able to listen to it on any other device might stop some from subscribing.
Amazon representatives had no comment on the rumors unsurprisingly, so it may mean they’re still exploring this idea. They are also not yet able to finalize deals with the major music labels and publishers which is of course crucial to building a library that can compete with the major services right now. Let’s see if this will come to fruition.
VIA: ReCode
