I was reading a blog recently on Macworld.com, and as I think is typical in the Mac universe, a user was tenaciously defending Jobs' "people want to own music" stance with a variety of weak arguments, not the least of which is that "Fairplay" is actually owning anything... which it's not.

But here's the thing... that's ok. Its ok, because music is about personal and communal enjoyment and the enhancement of life (geez, I sound like a hippy sometimes), and not about stuff. It CAN be about collecting and stuff, but when it is... its not about collecting bits on a drive. When the bug hits you to collect, you are going to collect CD's or probably vinyl.

So, now the math part. A lot of articles and blogs of late have been doing "back of he napkin" math to determine which kind of digital service has better value. Napster even centered an ad campaign around these calculations. The problem I see with defining value with the # of tracks/dollar along with a nebulous "ownership added value" factor (which is basically what everyone does), is that it really misses the point of why/how we listen to music.

I believe that music is quite unique in the way it is consumed compared to other media such as games or movies. No other media form has the potential for passive consumption like music does - even pre portable media devices. No other media form has the potential to enhance other experiences like music does. No other media form has a lower barrier to discovery into new styles and forms. No other media form says more about "who I am" than music. Ok, maybe books, but a lot more people listen to music than read books - I think we can all agree on that.

I am probably preaching to the choir on this, so let's move on... given all of the above, I think that the math that just measures consumption is faulty. I think that if we had an equation to measure "Net Enjoyment", then we would be onto something. Personally, I think the subscription/ tethered download services provide a huge amount of "Net Enjoyment" and, no, I don't care if it involves DRM.

Now, just to be clear... I don't especially like DRM, and I certainly don't think the services have been very clear in their marketing collateral or help docs about the all the potential gotchas and pitfalls, but that's for another blog. If DRM works, is transparent, and most importantly, delivers what the consumer expects, then its ok. I think that there is a huge amount of room for improvement in all of these areas, but fortunately, I was able to factor these things out in order to truly rate the experience. So I'm renting music... so what? I get to listen to so much more than I ever have, especially with the tethered component built in. I listen to music I don't even like - - and yes, that, too, is all part of the Net Enjoyment equation. What about Peer to Peer, you say? Well, from a discovery and Net Enjoyment standpoint, I have to say that subscription is better. Why? The meta-data is all correct and the interface is editorialized. Also, when you introduce collaborative filtering on a subscription service, it is much more compelling. On P2P, instead of 'people who like this also like this', you get 'people who downloaded this also downloaded this' - I know it sounds like the same thing, but it's not. If I build my 'library' on a sub service, it IS what I like, as there is no good reason for me to engage in that activity otherwise. On P2P, people download stuff just because it's there and they might want to listen to it later. This means that the community and sharing features are bound to be very compelling once there is enough adoption and data (the big drawback with collaborative filtering is the enormous amount of data points required).

The stuff I really really like, I still buy the CD or the vinyl, and I don't know if that will ever change for me. Often, this is because I want to support the artist by buying at a show or support a local record store - or because the packaging and artwork is really nice. Also, there is still quite a bit of independent stuff that either doesn't make it to the services or doesn't make it when at street date -- this is IODA's mission, but enough of that for now. I still feel like ownership is cool, but the music has to be extra special for me to own... which brings up another point.

Remember when you bought a lot of CD's and sold back the ones you didn't like? (before everyone had CD Burners) - that was renting. Cassette tapes as a whole format was renting, because they only lasted a year, and you had to record another one off of a friends record or buy it yourself.

So get out there and Enjoy some music... rent it, own it, whatever. Just find it, listen and enjoy.