The question is whether to buy your music or rent your digital music. Studies have indicated that the average digital music player has around 1,770 songs. The same survey from a university in England also found that half of the songs were illegal downloads. So let’s say you’re a law-abiding citizen, setting the average number of legal songs on a digital music player to 850 songs.
Most online sources that sell music charge around 0.99 cents per song, which means 850 songs will set you back $850. Since you own the music, you can listen to it however you want, for as long as you want. Digital music rentals range from $10 to $14 a month, depending on the service you choose to rent your music from. Subscription-based digital music services will allow you to listen to millions of songs and will most likely include all 850 songs in your digital music player, all for the cost of the subscription.
A subscription cost of $13 a month would give you almost 5 1/2 years of access to music before hitting $850. Canceling your subscription in 5 1/2 years would no longer give you access to all 850 songs on your music player if you opted for a subscription instead of purchasing all 850 songs. Keep in mind that if you started with 850 songs today, chances are you’ll buy a good number of additional songs over the next 5 1/2 years.
Based on the comparison of 850 songs, you would spend $850 over 5 1/2 years. In a strict song ownership perspective, buying is better because you would have 850 songs in 5 1/2 years. Since most people will average 2 song purchases a week for a total of $8 a month, you’d only spend a couple more dollars a month to keep your subscription. A subscription is by far the best option. A subscription will give you the option to listen to millions of songs whenever you want, including new songs released every week.