[tptacek]

The world before iTMS involved me going to tiny record stores and thumbing through physical CDs. In today's world, within 4 minutes of reading a review of a new artist, I can have the track on my phone.

Over the long term, maybe iTMS lock-in is bad for consumers. But when you say that, I personally (just me) think you have to account for the fact that over the short term, it's been a huge win.

[telemachos]

This is tangential. I'm not really agreeing or disagreeing with your main point(s).

I miss browsing. I miss (good) record stores. I miss (good) used bookstores. Some of my favorite memories are of browsing used bookstores in the five boroughs of NYC. Nearly all of them are closed now. The Strand sells mostly new remainders - though I go there anyhow, because I miss browsing. You can sort of browse online, but it's really not the same at all.

I grant that I can search online and get books from all over the world. I do it all the time. So, it's not all bad - not at all. (Nowadays searches for a specific target go much better than in the past at those random used bookstores.) The future is amazing. But I miss browsing.

[tptacek]

It was fun hunting for things. It was fun finding out about the best record stores, which were always skillfully camouflaged to look like run-down used record stores. It was fun bumping into people and it was fun to have your cred affirmed by approving comments from the clerk when you bought a CD or asked them to order something from a catalogue.

But it is better this way for everybody but the middlemen.

[hboon]

Not really. Apple is the new middlemen (and has been for a while).

So more accurately: it's better for everybody but the previous middlemen.

[dreamdu5t]

False dichotomy. You can have an online music store without waging a format war and trying to control how people use their music.

[Steko]

"You can have an online music store without waging a format war and trying to control how people use their music."

You can do this today only because Apple went to bat with the labels, won a bunch of freedoms, had a crapton of success and the labels (fearing Apple's leverage) gave even more freedoms to Amazon et al.

[mishmash]

Exactly and some time down the line when Google/Amazon/Microsoft/Canocial inevitably offer an equivalent service/price it will be because Apple validated the model. The only interesting part will be if the labels make the iTunes clones pony-up the large upfront fees Apple did.

[tptacek]

I wasn't proposing a dichotomy. I was making a simple observation. Consumers are better off now than they were before Apple seized a dominant role in music distribution.