Subscriptions, eh?

After reading this article in the New York Times magazine on Rick Rubin’s move to Columbia, I’m giving more consideration to the subscription-based model for the distribution of media. For the record, I can think of at least 3 ways how we might consume abundant media (I’m assuming that all media texts will be abundant in the coming era):

1. Ad-driven – this assumes that spot advertisements (or any kind of ads outside of search-based ads) actually work. After reading this book my Michael Schudson and speaking with my friend who works for a new media marketing firm in San Francisco, I feel increasingly confident in claiming that the kind of push advertising that consumers don’t seek out but is foisted upon them (as opposed to ads based on a google search for a consumer good) never worked very well. I have to admit that I’m thoroughly disappointed to see YouTube going down this road.
   
2. Micro-payments – This is how Itunes works. I had an idea about a new "nickelodeon" where you would pay 5 cents to see a short film that was made on a low budget. So as we’ve seen music adjust from album-oriented sales (which dictate what gets made), we’ll see a change from 2-hour movies and half-hour or hour episodes to shorter, more serialized online videos. If they are serials, then in a sense, it will be like a subscription, though it will be one with rather unfair terms that will ultimately hurt the show’s lasting value – viewers will be strung along as long as the network can string them along for. With an ideal subscription network, viewers are loyal to the aesthetic of the network, and therefore aren’t liable to jump ship when one particular narrative ends. In that case, the narrative doesn’t have to get dragged on and become watered down.
3. Subscription – I used to be against the idea of more media going this way, just for personal reasons. I hate bills, I hate being locked into something. There’s something about he subscription-based way of consuming media that makes it more habitual and less critical or reflective, and therefore you’re more liable to end up with shittier, shallower media. But after reading Rubin’s prediction, I thought a bit more about subscription media. Suddenly, I realized that the two brand name ways of disseminating and producing media that I praise the most are subscription-based: HBO and Netflix. I still think that the way people consume music and the way they consume narrative media is and always has been radically different, so I’m not sure that any restriction on when a person can listen to a certain piece of music would work.
   

Whether micro-payments or subscriptions are the way to go, for music or video, depends on how the media is consumed. If its a serial narrative (or a series of serial narratives) then a subscription would make sense because consumption is so habitual. But with something like music, you want to listen to it many times over, but you might put it away for a few years and then rediscover it. I feel like this happens more with music than it does with video.

Already, I think we're seeing a tiered system develop in music: there's music that people are OK paying for (maybe music that's in greater demand, had a higher budget to produce, or is, by critical accounts, damn good) and then there's music that people don't expect to pay for (poppy, temporary hits). There hasn't been much of a price hierarchy in music before: the pop album cost roughly the same amount as the rap, classical, indie rock albums. But it would be interesting to see that change in the future. Maybe there will be a bottom-feeder genre of music that is free but that contain product placement in their lyrics, or are ad jingles.