not to be a contrarian, and i think this whole trend of renting not owning is a bad precedent in the ip wars but i can see a lot of users jumping all over this, and why not? they're already paying 10-13/mo for subscription radio, where they have no control at all. with this model, they fill 'er up at the pc station and they're good to go until they're sick of the stuff, then it's all new all over again. sure, 20 gigs is not a lot (5333 songs by my calculation and i'm sure the hardware capacity will increase, as will d/l speeds and quality), but after rotating them off, a three year total of accessed music could reach 50,000 tracks or more - which is some serious cabbage if one had to buy them all. and with all due respect to the above essayist, if p2p has taught us anything, it's that some people (ok me) have an almost unlimited appetite for fresh toona. "pointless gluttony"? ha! sounds like somebody needs a trip to the p2p imaginarium. sure i keep all my stuff, but i'm a p2p pack rat, an archivist. you should experience my virtual attic, dust bunnies and mp3 files competing with oggs, wavs, jpgs and htms for every last magnetic bit (all those who max out a drive more than 5x a week raise your hands). i can’t see ‘em, but I know they’re there, and that’s enough for me. still, not everybody collects, as a stop at any weekend tag sale will show and for those who just want variety and freshness, but a lot of it and
right now, and who don't particularly care if they ever hear chilliwack again, this could be an option.
had this model
preceded p2p it would've been a no-brainer out of the park home run. now it's a gamble but not much of one if the satellite radio business is any indication. like that one before it i think it'll fly.
oh, and btw. you can rip them all via analog. it's a pain in the ass but it's no harder than it was in the 80's, when chilliwack
ruled man. lol.
- js.