SongLOLS

Really, Lanier? 'Songles'? I consider myself pretty...techy. I read message boards. I blog. I have experimented with Linux. I heart open-source. And you know what I have learned while reading about many of these interests? People freaking hate dongles. They do. A lot. They get lost, they break, you never have them with you when you need them. Try introducing a fancy new gadget at some big trade event and telling the crowd that an important port will require a dongle. Even Apple fans get pissed about Steve Jobs telling them that they will need a dongle. Yet a 'songle' is your idea on how to return the music industry to it's glory days? Tying individual songs to a physical object? One of the reasons that digital music took off so much (aside from the whole ' you can download it for free' thing), was that people generally disliked the physical clutter created by a large music collection. That was when 12-15 songs were on one physical object. Imagine how well having so many coffee cups, or wristbands, or whatever else Lanier suggested would go over.

So let's say I really want to buy a new song. Sure, says Lanier, buy this cup, it is the key to your song, and you can also enjoy delicious beverages in it! But wait, says I. I already have many cups. I overfloweth with cups. I do not want another. I do want that song. Now what? Are record labels supposed to provide a vast range of songles to ensure that my needs as a consumer are being met? Not only will these songles consume extra material, which isn't enviromentally friendly, there will need to be huge stores to sell these things. Not very efficient. At all.