Good riddance!

Looks like Microsoft got something right at last! It seems to me that a system that a) tracks what you listen to and b) sneakily starts billing you after a number of listens, is a system that does not deserve to live anyway. Pay-per-listen is nothing more than pure, rank greed - once I have a tune on my computer, I don't want to have to worry about what it's costing me every time I play it. What if I'm half-way through a track and the phone rings? That listen is ruined, but I still have to pay. Or what if I have to skip through several tracks, listening to a few seconds of each one, looking for a particular passage? I have to pay for all of them, even though I'm only really listening to one. They can stick that idea where the sun don't shine with spikes on!

Not to mention the blatant violation of privacy that occurs when companies like Weedshare can build profiles of their audience's listening habits, attach those profiles to a real identity (by virtue of extracting payment from them) and possibly sell those profiles to advertisers who'd then spam me with the likes of "Hello Steve, heard you like [insert artist here] trax! Well, have we got an awesome deal for you..." While I accept that advertising is an essential part of business, I point-blank refuse to buy anything where an advertising company has used profiling and calculated psychology to try to mind-bend me into buying something I might not normally buy. Even if it IS something I really want, cheaper than anywhere else. I'll buy it somewhere else, dearer if need be, from someone whose business is sales, not mind control.

So if Microsoft's new media player excludes con-artists like Weedshare from sneaky enticement and billing practices, and prevents them from building psych-manipulation profiles of their customers, I'm all for it. All my music is MP3, and all my video is XviD AVI, to which I convert any other formats I get. Nothing else. That way, I know I can do what I want with my files and don't have to worry about nasty surprises down the track.