iDisagree
Stephen Gordon of The Speculist has posted what he admits feels like "a big Napster commercial," proclaiming its superiority over the ever-popular iTunes. Here's a quote:
Stephen Gordon - July 6th, 2005 Bottom line: To fill an MP3 player with music today - and variety is what I want - I could spend $1000 for 1000 songs over at iTunes, or $15 per month at Napster. I'm going with Napster.
Now, I use Napster, and am quite pleased with it. It fills a much-needed role in the growing world of legitimate online music purchases.
However, Gordon is leaving out a vitally important caveat: you lose access to the music you've downloaded if you stop paying the monthly fee. You have to connect your player to their server once a month to verify that your account is still active. With iTunes, though you don't get the "all you can eat" treatment and will probably end up paying more, the songs themselves are yours permanently. And let's not forget that Napster-downloaded songs won't load onto the iPod, unless you're willing to record their audio input with some sort of third party program, such as Total Recorder.
This is not to say iTunes is necessarily superior. I use, and enjoy, both. But while iTunes is mostly upfront about its method, I can't help but think people are getting taken in by Napster's promise of unlimited access. That Gordon would write such a thorough, lengthy post and leave out this most important of details does not speak well as to how straightforward Napster's advertising has been on this matter.
Hat tip to the Instapundit.
» July 6th, 2005
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