The true danger of Napster was not that it let the masses of people download MP3's for free forever - day one we knew Napster wasn't going to last (being Server-Client based and all). The danger now is that, let's say 99% of Napster users abandon the service now that it's fee based/closed/whatever - now these people wil use other methods - newsgroups, other sharing services, search engines etc. to get their MP3 fix - a fix they could have done without prior to Napster. Napster merely opened the floodgates for the ignorant and previously impatient masses. My favorite analogy is my Born-Again Christian sister who Napstered until the end - now she's moved on to Morpheus. She can't install or upgrade or fix anything on her computer without my help, but she got this file/MP3 sharing thing down pat herself. But take it from someone who has gigabytes of MP3's on CD-R's and has never once used Napster - the MP3's are out there if you want to find them badly enough.
Also, superior formats don't matter. MP3Pro, WMA, Liquid Audio, etc. - don't even bother. MP3 is free, clear and good enough. People creating new formats are wasting their time - only those who follow the law anyway will use restricted formats.
Finally, a fee based subscription will never work for the same reason that pcxl.com died quickly and Colin Powell will never become President. As much as people (and white people in that last instance) say things like "Sure, I'd pay for PCXL in any format" or "Sure, I'd pay X for a monthly download service" or "Sure, I'd vote for Colin Powell", when it comes right down to it, they won't. Why pay $.99 for an MP3 at emusic.com when I can find it for free elsewhere?
IGN.com has a series of very good websites covering game topics. Along with Daily Radar, I quite liked going to these sites.
Now IGN has restricted some of their content to where you have to register with them to read it. No big deal. They have also restricted some content further to where you have to pay for it.
Thanks, but no thanks.
Not that I don't think IGN is any good - I go there all the time. And not that I don't think it "should be free" - I'm not that foolish. It's just that I already can read most anything I want on other free sites or in the numerous magazines I subscribe to. See, I already pay for plenty of content, and I've already got a wife saying I pay for too much. Now you want me to pay for something that you started out giving away for free? Thanks, but no thanks.
The ultimate kicker is that IGN now has "IGN Unplugged" - a downloadable, printable PDF magazine which you can purchase (or get when you subscribe to IGN). Okay, so now for like $30 a year I get nothing other than the content you used to give for free and now I get the privlige of printing out my own damn magazine with the paper and ink I pay for (and pretty much gauranteeing (sp?) that it will look like ass when I print it unless I go to Kinko's and print it on their color lasers - shyeah right) or viewing it online, which is more pointless than reading a web page? If this is what the content sites are reduced to - the drug dealer twist on content and merely aspiting to the print publications they are supposed to be superior to (and passing along the cost of reproduction to the consumer, increasing their own profit margin), then I'll be pickled tink to still be reading PC Gamer and Next Generation ten years from now when IGN is dead and gone.
Slashdot, however - that still might be worth paying for.
Why not PSX? I mean, the hard drive and broadband isn't out yet, so either they're going to wait or they're going to do more modifications to the PS2 hardware, and so long as you're doing that you might as well go PSX. They're cheaper anyway.
I hope Sony isn't lame enough to count however many thousand PS2's they sell out of this deal as part of their installed base.
The DC has had some really kickass emulation projects on it - DreamSNES looks to have lots of potential once they hit 1.0 and NesterDC kicks ass. For what it's worth, though, the Quake port for DC was done by Titanium Studios, not an independent hacker. They're a studio specializing in ports and they turned it out in 2 weeks to show how well/quickly they can work. It was "stolen" (or leaked) from them and it's an illegal copy. While Quake 1 is under the GPL, Titanium never released the executable officially.
Schnapple
How is it that you or anyone else can make money on EMusic.com? I mean, I can see how if someone pays $8-$9 to download an MP3 album, but what about when people subscribe for $10 a month and can download any and all MP3's on EMusic? How is it anyone profits from that? Also, if I got on an EMusic.com subscription and downloaded all of your albums, would you get more money than if I just downloaded a few songs?
Slashdot Mirror
Also, superior formats don't matter. MP3Pro, WMA, Liquid Audio, etc. - don't even bother. MP3 is free, clear and good enough. People creating new formats are wasting their time - only those who follow the law anyway will use restricted formats.
Finally, a fee based subscription will never work for the same reason that pcxl.com died quickly and Colin Powell will never become President. As much as people (and white people in that last instance) say things like "Sure, I'd pay for PCXL in any format" or "Sure, I'd pay X for a monthly download service" or "Sure, I'd vote for Colin Powell", when it comes right down to it, they won't. Why pay $.99 for an MP3 at emusic.com when I can find it for free elsewhere?
Schnapple
Now IGN has restricted some of their content to where you have to register with them to read it. No big deal. They have also restricted some content further to where you have to pay for it.
Thanks, but no thanks.
Not that I don't think IGN is any good - I go there all the time. And not that I don't think it "should be free" - I'm not that foolish. It's just that I already can read most anything I want on other free sites or in the numerous magazines I subscribe to. See, I already pay for plenty of content, and I've already got a wife saying I pay for too much. Now you want me to pay for something that you started out giving away for free? Thanks, but no thanks.
The ultimate kicker is that IGN now has "IGN Unplugged" - a downloadable, printable PDF magazine which you can purchase (or get when you subscribe to IGN). Okay, so now for like $30 a year I get nothing other than the content you used to give for free and now I get the privlige of printing out my own damn magazine with the paper and ink I pay for (and pretty much gauranteeing (sp?) that it will look like ass when I print it unless I go to Kinko's and print it on their color lasers - shyeah right) or viewing it online, which is more pointless than reading a web page? If this is what the content sites are reduced to - the drug dealer twist on content and merely aspiting to the print publications they are supposed to be superior to (and passing along the cost of reproduction to the consumer, increasing their own profit margin), then I'll be pickled tink to still be reading PC Gamer and Next Generation ten years from now when IGN is dead and gone.
Slashdot, however - that still might be worth paying for.
Schnapple
Why not PSX? I mean, the hard drive and broadband isn't out yet, so either they're going to wait or they're going to do more modifications to the PS2 hardware, and so long as you're doing that you might as well go PSX. They're cheaper anyway.
I hope Sony isn't lame enough to count however many thousand PS2's they sell out of this deal as part of their installed base.
Schnapple
The DC has had some really kickass emulation projects on it - DreamSNES looks to have lots of potential once they hit 1.0 and NesterDC kicks ass. For what it's worth, though, the Quake port for DC was done by Titanium Studios, not an independent hacker. They're a studio specializing in ports and they turned it out in 2 weeks to show how well/quickly they can work. It was "stolen" (or leaked) from them and it's an illegal copy. While Quake 1 is under the GPL, Titanium never released the executable officially. Schnapple
How is it that you or anyone else can make money on EMusic.com? I mean, I can see how if someone pays $8-$9 to download an MP3 album, but what about when people subscribe for $10 a month and can download any and all MP3's on EMusic? How is it anyone profits from that? Also, if I got on an EMusic.com subscription and downloaded all of your albums, would you get more money than if I just downloaded a few songs?