Ironic that Creative and I-pod machines are increasing their storage capacities and a headline like this one "Home users face fines or jail for illegal downloads" pops up in the local papers today. Have to wonder, what is all that storage space going to be used for now? Why should people pay for something so expensive when they are going to be criminalized for the content they carry around in it?

Let's do some math. Creative's new Zen Micro at a modest 5Gb holds 2,500 songs at CD quality. If 1 CD contains about 12-14 songs, it should be able to hold about 208 CDs worth of music. At about $18 per CD, a Zen will cost about $3,750 to load up fully with legally purchased music. If we downloaded legally off Soundbuzz at $1.99 a song, that's even worse for our budget, an amount worth $4,975! Looking at the figures, most people (especially young people, "Mom, can I have $3,750 to buy music with, please?") will be priced out of the market.

Once, we used our music to "stick it to The Man," now The Man has gotten smart is looking for ways to stick it to us with His music instead. Folks, we gotta find a more equitable alternative -- forget technology; buy cheap, buy unlimited capacity: buy an FM radio. >sigh< Economics has set our society back by 20 years.