Microsoft has posted a new video called “Financial Planner: iTunes Costs A Lot, Zune Pass A Little”. Watching the video made me think, have I been spending too much by buying songs from iTunes? So I calculated the total cost of all the songs I own, and some of the songs in my library are from 1980’s when I was a small kid. The total number of songs that I have in my iTunes library is 2,348. If we calculate based on $1 price for each song the total will be $2,348 – the amount of money I spend in past 20 years on songs.

Now, if I had used Zune Pass for past 20 years the total cost would come to $3597, which is about $1249 more than buying songs from iTunes. In last six years, since I got my first iPod, I have bought 510 songs from iTunes, which means on average I buy 85 songs per year for a total cost of $85/year. However, if I use Zune Pass I would pay $179.88 per year, more than double of what I have paid to iTunes.

Whatever Microsoft is advertising, the truth is subscription service will only be beneficial if you are spending more than $180 per year on buying songs and most people don’t fall in that category.