You’ve probably seen stories like this one in BusinessWeek claiming we’re trying to roll out a subscription music plan. Or this one from the Financial Times. The fact is it’s a great idea, at least for some people. And every study shows there’s an appetite for this kind of thing. But until we have it rolled out I’m going to keep saying it’s shit and that nobody wants it. And if you really want to know why we don’t have it, it’s not for lack of trying on our part. It’s the record labels. In case you hadn’t noticd, those guys friggin hate us. I mean hate us. Like, a lot. And they’re working overtime trying to weaken us by propping up new distrributors like Nokia. To do that, they’ll create innovative new plans and then feed those to the “ABA” (Anybody But Apple) companies. They’re praying that one of these moronic outfits actually gains some traction. Frankly I don’t see it happening. Simple reason. It’s hard to make a good music player. It’s hard to make good software for managing music. It’s hard to make a good online music store. And it’s really, really hard to make all those things work together in a seamless, holistic experience. The record labels don’t seem to understand this. They never have. They think what we’ve done is trivial and can be easily replicated. It’s not, and it can’t. But whatever, record label dudes. Keep pissing into the wind. We’ll still be here when you get tired of having pee all over your face.