[Igottago]

Its really a matter of how we want the business model of music to work. I have friends who own ipods, have lots of music on it, yet they don't own a single CD..and they aren't buying the downloads through iTunes. They have a sense that they should never have to pay for music, and they never will. They just don't value it that way.

And the way I see it, that's the way most consumers think about music today. This mentality will slowly kill the music industry, its already happening. It will be increasingly harder for bands, even really good bands, to be career musicians. They may have their moment of fame and then fade away. If we are okay with that, then having no music industry and transitioning towards self-released mp3 albums is the way to go.

The music industry deserves more than its share of criticism. They have been pushing weak generic product onto people for years now, cashing in on silly trends and not developing talent like they used to. Obviously a lot of what is being pushed on people isn't really worth buying anyways. But if we lose that framework of music being a business, then in a way we will start losing the importance of music in our culture. Great albums will no longer be culturally significant, they will be some guys on the internet who made something in their basement and released it themselves, with no promotional support, which might catch on if they're lucky.