Rhapsody and Partner Verizon Take On iTunes

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I totaly agree what a waste of my time after numorous attempts and 13 new cd's lator I finally was defeated by a bunch of morons at rhapsody,finally just gave up and almost threatend to sue if they did not cancel subscription.

MIKE EKELLER of FL 12:04AM March 08, 2009

I registered for an account yesterday to check out the rhapsody service. After registering I was given a $10.00 credit so I was able to purchase the album of my choice. I selected my album, downloaded the rhapsody and MP3 download manager and attempted to download the album. 2 hours later after multiple customer service calls and about 50 download attempt, I gave up and canceled my membership. Rhapsody uses java scripts and a web based interface to download music. This is such a headache. Not only were the customer service agents unable to fix the problem, they don't cancel the membership when you ask them You have to practically beg them to cancel, otherwise they just keep on trying to hold on to you. It took about 2 minutes to create the account and about 30 to cancel.
iTunes works, simple. I am going back to iTunes and wish all you rhapsody members good luck!

of GA 10:07AM July 01, 2008

I've been a Rhapsody member for many, many years. Way back when, the Rhapsody library was about 300k songs and that seemed like surely it was 99% of the recorded tracks in the history of man. Since day one of my membership, I could buy tracks for $0.99 a track (or less, in some cases) and always DRM free. All I had to do was put up with the inconvenience of recording them first to CD (using the Rhapsody client application), then ripping them back to MP3 format from the cd I just burned. Not the most convenient way and the cds cost me a few pennies, but it beat the heck out of buying DRM'd tacks from Steve Jobs.
After buying some tracks, it occurred to me that I didn't expect to record enough HBO or ESPN never to watch either of them again. I expected to have a cable subscription for the rest of my life. Having a Rhapsody subscription for the rest of my life seemed like no big deal comared to my Cox Cable bill. So these days I have access to over 3 Million tracks and I haven't bought a physical CD or even a single track in years -- and I'm happy as can be.
People are used to buying tracks, because they are used to buying CDs, because they were used to buying cassettes, and before that they were used to buying 8-Tracks and before that vinyl. Momentum is a strong market force. Nevertheless, the buy-a-track model seems silly. I'm happy to pay annually -- and for the rest of my life -- for access to 99% of the world's recorded music. I don't expect to tape,,, er... Tivo... enough HBO or ESPN so that I can stop subscribing to cable tv. Why should music be different? And unlike HBO or ESPN, I can have it all whenever I want it.

Gray of OK 12:16AM July 01, 2008

Rhapsody wants to draw customers away from itunes with the offer of DRM-free downloads. DRM or the lack of DRM is not really a problem for me. I want simple integration of my software and hardware. Apple remains the master of that experience. I suspect that all Rhapsody will succeed in accomplishing is drawing away customers from the myriad of other digital providers like Amazon. I will, like many, many others will stay very content with the itunes/ipod experience.

Kurt of WA 5:16PM June 30, 2008