[extropy-chat] finding old (and new) sf

[Brian Atkins]

Damien, what do you think about a subscription model? I'm referring to something 
like the Yahoo Unlimited Music service, which costs $60 a year and allows one to 
download/access over 1 million songs, including copying them to a portable audio 
player. If you end your subscription, the music "expires" from your devices 
within a month.

I assume the artists make some money based on how popular their music is on this 
type of service, but I don't know the specifics of the contracts.

Personally I find that both my dvd and music intakes have both converted 
essentially 100% to subscription services, and I find this provides a superior 
overall experience. I look for large selection and total entertainment bang, 
balanced against lowest cost, and this seems to hit a nice sweet spot. And I 
find the current price to be pretty competitive vs. the option of "free" p2p 
alternatives. I think others agree since subscription service usage appears to 
be rapidly passing p2p usage in terms of number of users.

I'm not sure if this would work well for the written word though since most 
readers prefer books as their user interface currently. Maybe if a really good 
portable electronic reader device would be developed...
-- 
Brian Atkins
Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
http://www.singinst.org/