"We are the software makers. We are the makers of productivity applications."

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It's cheaper to fill a Zune with music and the sound fidelity is better. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to go back to listening to some of the music that the Zune software automatically downloaded for me based on my likes and library.

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Besides, I've never like those automatic music you will like things, Genius included, its just all dismal.

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At < $180 a year it's not too bad. I get to keep 10 tracks per month permanently, which effectively drops the price to $5 a month. $60 a year. Hell, that's less than dinner and a movie with Girlie.

I rent the internet. I rent movies. I rent cable. I rent phone service. It's all just going to wind up on a player the size of a deck of cards.

I put all my CDs in binders long ago. At the time, I had about 300 CDs. You'd be amazed at how much weight is just the packaging. The truth is we're in the Digital Distibution Age. More and more, we're buying licenses, not media. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.

If your media drive full of protected AAC goes bad, you're by and large screwed. Apple will give you one free restore of your content but after that you have to pay to get it back. If your media drive full of music from Zune goes bad, you don't pay anything extra. All-you-can-eat means you can get more mashed potatoes even if you dropped a plate of mashed potatoes.

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Marquee acts like Madonna and Metallica wanted to shut down Napster because they got a ton of money from album sales.

Small and midsize acts actually never really minded Napster. From a small act's point of view, Napster was akin to having your music on the radio - except you didn't have to deal with ClearChannel. From a midsize act's point of view, Napster sent a message that record labels are obsolete because anyone can distribute their own music. And both liked that the exposure drove people to venues to see shows - and to buy merch (which artists typically keep all of the revenue from).

The point of Napster (and Morpheus) was that you could expand your musical horizons. If you liked Portishead, why not listen to Morcheeba?

I'm not going to pay $10 to buy an album which is 80% crap. I will pay $5 a month to be able to download whatever I want. That seems more reasonable to me than paying $1 to buy a hit single that I won't listen to after a month.

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Pretty subjective. You might as well have said that chocolate ice cream is far superior to vanilla.

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