Buying Music Online

Since the iPod purchase, the iTunes program has become instrinsically integrated in my computer's system. I can't do anything with the iPod, separate from iTunes. There are ads (at least, they sure look like ads to me!) that appear within iTunes enticing me to download a free song of the week (or some such thing).

My curiosity piqued, I clicked on the link and was ported to a page requesting credit card information. An immediate and total turn off. If the song's free, it's free - end of story. Why should I need to divulge credit card information? If it's because the free song is part of the iTunes Music Store, then place the free music separate from the online music store and let me be.

As it stands, I am not enticed to buy my music online. What's the incentive? Convenience? I live close to a Circuit City where the CDs are always on sale. Price? Oh yea, woo me with your $.99 downloads that are restricted to the primary computer and dictate how many CDs I can burn. When my computer crashes (it is inevitable), all of the paid music will be in jeopardy.

Sure. I can rip Apple's AAC files to MP3 (suffering more compression and degradation in quality) and create back ups. But why should I have to? I've paid for the songs and should be able to listen to them anyway that I want, on as many devices as I want!

What's Apple's solution: Just buy the music again. No thanks. I'll continue buying CDs and getting the highest quality music that I can.