iTunes Ditches Free Music Downloads Again

free_whole_screenYou, iTunes user! What use do you have for free downloads when you have the glorious streaming library of Apple Music to enjoy? Earlier this year, iTunes appeared to discontinue their free music download of the week, a decade-old feature. We speculated that Apple was doing away with the feature because of their acquisition of Beats, which has a music streaming service. Now that Apple Music has arrived, the free music downloads are gone again.

For now, of course, Apple Music is free for the first free months, but old-school iTunes users might miss their free tunes. Now all that’s available are TV episodes as free downloads, which you can see above. Reader Andrew points out that downloadable movie trailers are also gone from iTunes.

This time, the freebies might be gone for good: streaming video sites like YouTube are a better way to watch movie trailers, and consumers are buying fewer full albums and more streaming subscription.

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