Music!

[silver_tiamat]

I don't know how often people buy music, but I do it pretty often. In fact, ever since I was 11-years-old and bought my very first CDs (Goo Goo Dolls and Savage Garden, if you'd like to know), I've been hooked. Before that, I even had a growing thing for tapes (Queen, Matchbox 20, Tracy Chapman, and The Police), even at age 9-years-old

Comments

[iam_kayak]

Have you tried Spotify yet? I have been buying less music because I can stream music at work (the only time I really listen to music other than in the car) and since my computer has cable internet there's no lag time and I can listen to music ALL day. It also lets you create your own playlists or listen to a station based on an artist (like Pandora) AND you can import existing playlists from itunes and mix songs you own with songs you don't own (the songs you don't own can only be played when connected to the internet).

[silver_tiamat]

I haven't, yet. I figured if I didn't like Pandora, I could try others like Spotify, but I've actually rather liked Pandora. My only issue with both is that they (like iTunes) don't often carry some artists I know of (Yamazaki Masayoshi comes immediately to mind) that aren't American

[outlier1985]

I actually haven't messed around much with iTunes yet. It's partly my dislike of Apple, but mostly because when I do make the odd digital music purchase, I tend to use Amazon's MP3 store. It's essentially the same kind of service, I think, except without tv/movies/etc. also being offered, as iTunes does(though I could be wrong). o_o

I do kind of wish Steam was more like either service, in that you can just do whatever you want with the product once you've paid for and downloaded it. The key thing I worry about with services like Steam or Origin now is... well, what happens if they go down for good, or the download servers are shut down? I'd be effectively cut off from something I paid for. With iTunes and Amazon, I can just move my items wherever I want, whenever I want. D:

[silver_tiamat]

At first, iTunes and Amazon were pretty even--neither was really any better than the other. Then, iTunes won out for the same reason that something like it always will: it was a streamlined business and Amazon is a billion-multi-faceted company. iTunes put more and more money back into itself to buy licences and all that jazz, got higher quality streaming and downloading software, and worked on an easier way to ensure they get money for their goods without losing customers who lose/change their computers. Now, it's 100% clear that iTunes is far superior to Amazon

[outlier1985]

I think I might check into iTunes eventually. The only band whose albums I still care to have physical copies of is Dream Theater, anyway. I'm perfectly happy going digital with pretty much anyone else.

Oh, arcades... those were the days. XP

One alternative I actually didn't think of is that with most modern games, you can buy a physical copy for PC, then redeem it through Steam. So you can keep that physical copy as backup, but then be able to download the same game from Steam whenever you please. I'd look into that every so often, but physical PC media is faaar more expensive than Steam tends to be. :S