The good thing about a subscription streaming service is that you pay one fee and get to sample all you want, and usually you would listen to more songs than the subscription fee would buy individually. The streaming service also allows you to check out things you’re curious about, and find new stuff without committing to buying it. It’s a great thing for music fans.
I hope you can make Rhapsody work on the new player.
As for iTunes, your informant wasn’t quite right. You can buy individual songs from other services like iTunes, Amazon and eMusic but that gets expensive at $.99 or $1.29 per song, or $9.99 per most albums.
If you do choose to do that, you have better alternatives than iTunes. Amazon and eMusic are already in mp3 format; ready for the Sansa. Amazon and iTunes both have most of the musical universe, though there are a few exclusives on iTunes. Amazon also runs weekly specials where you can get an album for a very low price–that’s how Lady GaGa had huge first-week sales.
For iTunes, you have to download the song in Apple’s own m4a format and convert to mp3. You can do the conversion in iTunes (highlight the file or files, right-click, Create mp3 version) but it’s an extra step. And then, because iTunes doesn’t like to tell you where the music is on your computer, you have to find the files, make sure you have the .mp3 and not .m4a versions, and send them over to the Clip.
It’s annoying–designed to push you toward buying an Apple player with a higher price and fewer features, but “it just works” with iTunes.
Streaming services are really moving toward smartphones, which are destroying the market for standalone mp3 players. I like my player because it doesn’t use up battery life on the phone, and it has slightly better sound, but that’s probably a rear-guard view.
Rhapsody has a smartphone app, and so do Spotify (which I use–it’s pretty good, though the cataloguing can be sloppy) and the new Beats Music. If you have a smartphone, you might try one of those, and just use the Sansa for music that’s already in your mp3 collection, for audiobooks, etc.
Technology marches on. Not always in the right direction.
