I have read that interview and it shows the lack of detail Microsoft is giving their products. Overall it's looking good and functionality is given, but the details.

Now I know what a Zune pass is, but I want music to belong to me. I'm so oldschool ^^

1% of 100,000,000 iTunes accounts = 1,000,000

$10 per month subscription = $10,000,000 per month

12 months gross revenue = $120,000,000

Not close to a billion in the bank each year me thinks.

At the moment, most of the music that I buy I have discovered from sources other than iTunes. I hear it on the radio or in a movie or TV show. iTunes isn’t all that great for determining whether or not you like a particular song.

Subscriptions aren’t a bad way to go in that case. But, if I were Apple, I’d take it a step further with smart playlists.

I might create a “morning commute” playlist. It would contain 37 of my favorite songs. It would contain all songs on Billboard Magazine’s Top 20 whose genre is not “Rap” or “Country.” It would contain short news, sports, and weather podcasts.

So every night, I’d plug in my iPod and when I wake up in the morning, I’d have a nice fresh playlist with everything I want to listen to on the ride to work. I hit the “Shuffle” button and I’m good to go.

For things that have Internet connections (iPhones and iPods), I could even have it wirelessly sync an “afternoon commute” playlist with 43 of my favorite songs, items on the Billboard Top 20 whose genre is “Pop” or “Dance” (I’m a little more upbeat in the afternoons) and the news podcasts (I already know the weather and sports).

Who needs radio?

The Zune software would be interesting on the Mac. It looks great.

More likely, I bet something along the lines of the following was getting discussed in Apple board meetings: “Sure, there’s a very vocal minority who make a lot of noise, but it doesn’t make a difference to the average consumer.”

In case you hadn’t noticed, Steve Jobs and Apple have ocasionally been known to say one thing in public and then do something completely different. After all, why would Apple want to lose Fair Play (or whatever their DRM scheme is called)? It forced people to stay with the iPod line.

I think a much more accurate interpretation of their actions is that Apple only started becoming enthusiastic about DRM-free when Amazon MP3 and other groups started showing that they were going to lose business by not making the move. Yeah, it probably was all orchestrated by the Music Labels (in order to weaken Apple’s media position), but that’s just fine by me. We still got the Amazon MP3 store in the process, and in case you hadn’t noticed, Amazon is almost always cheaper than iTunes.

I think that if Apple could find a new way to tie consumers to the iPod, they would jump on it in a heartbeat.

The Zune service, however, appears to be an exception. The big changer? Allowing me to keep about one album per month. If you subtract out the album, then it’s suddenly five dollars a month.

I’ll pay $5 a month for unlimited music. Particularly since it frees me from torrents and activity of dubious legal nature. I didn’t care so much when I was younger, but have changed my mind as I’ve gotten older.

And if they started offering video … well … just sign me up now.

As a result, it makes really good sense for Microsoft to bring their Zune (and subscription model) to the Mac platform. I sat down and calculated it the other day. Between iTunes and Amazon MP3, I typically buy one or two albums a month. This works out to about $18 or so. That more than pays for the Zune subscription, which gets me unlimited music (of which, I get to keep 10 tracks, or about 1 album). Getting a Zune, given my habits, would actually save me money.

What’s the big thing holding me back? Lack of a Mac specific client. If they solved that problem, I’d both get a Zune and sign up for their subscription plan.