As I was looking around for any Yahoo!-Facebook updates, I stumbled upon Greg’s Wordpress blog where he revealed an e-mail that he received from the Yahoo! Music Team:

On November 14, 2006, the cost of a new Yahoo! Music Unlimited subscription will increase from $6.99 to $8.99 per month. Despite this price increase, Yahoo! Music Unlimited will still offer the lowest price of any major subscription music service — now with a catalog of more than 2 million songs!
Because you’re a valued subscriber, we’re extending your current rate for an extra month and your credit card will not be charged at the new rate until after December 13, 2006. We’re also giving you an opportunity to upgrade to an annual subscription before November 14, 2006 and lock in the current low price of $4.99 per month (billed in one installment of $59.88). Click here to upgrade to an annual subscription.
To view or edit your account, log in at https://billing.yahoo.com/ using your Yahoo! ID and password. If you do not want to subscribe to Yahoo! Music Unlimited at the new rate, you must cancel your subscription before December 14, 2006. If you have more questions, you may contact Customer Care.
Thanks for using Yahoo! Music Unlimited.
- The Yahoo! Music Team

I definetely think that Yahoo! Music is a great service and the $59.88/year current subscription is not bad, but I think that is unfortunate for the people that do not discover Yahoo! Music until after November 14 to be stuck paying the $8.99 per month. What are you getting for the price hike? Is it just to maintain competition or expand further? Perhaps with this new price scheme the balance between server bandwidth used and revenues from subscription service may balance out a bit more in Yahoo!’s favor. You have to pay the bills somehow.

Greg says that he will be cancelling his account. If Greg’s reaction is indicative of the reaction other users will have, Yahoo! will have to handle some sort of damage control perhaps by way of offering some new features to make this bitter pill easier to swallow. Yahoo! has a great selection of music from major labels which makes it highly appealing to audio hip Net’ surfers who will probably stick with the service.

Indie music may find alternatives such as Epitonic sufficient for their needs. Epitonic has a smaller selection of songs but allows you to set up your playlist and even download (in your choice of either mp3 or WMV) from a plethora of artists who sound amazing but haven’t made it to MTV stardom yet.

The downside to this treasure chest of sweet tunes is the interface. It’s congested and not easy to get used to. And the Flash streaming player eats up massive amounts of memory over a lengthy play session after some time. But even if you get past the initial interface annoyance and discover a band that you know your friends will love, you’ll have to face the huge fault of Epitonic that you can’t link them to the artist! Everything on the page is framed in such a what that you never get a direct link to the artist page you’re viewing. So if you ever want to share some sweet tunes, your friends will have to sign up (which is free) then do a search for the artist (which is cumbersome), or download and then send the song over to your friend (which is just way too much work). Yet you can’t deny, when you do find a good beat it makes all the hassle worth it.

So you audiophiles have your choice, you can go with Yahoo! slickness and user ease, or you can trade it in for the rough edges of Epitonic that feels as Indie as the artists it supports. Of course if you can’t decide and have the cash to spare, you can always go with both.