I can see now that Apple's iTunes Store is going to be a problem for me.
I'm a reformed Gnutella user (who sought the digital versions of all the albums I owned still tucked away somewhere in my parents' basement) and a reborn music addict (I own and play (poorly) two guitars and a couple of other musical instrument). And Apple figured out how to hook me– a 99-cent price point for single song downloads, and $10 for most albums. And the 30-second listening room feature made my trips to the local chain store (or even time browsing music on Amazon) seem a waste of time–and opened some doors that I might have otherwise left closed musically because of issues like , er, cover art.
Case in point: I just downloaded Sum 41's album, “Does This Look Infected?”. While the visuals associated with the album probably would have kept me from listening to it in the record store (and it certainly isn't in circulation on the radio stations I listen to during my 15 minutes in the car every day), I decided to risk a listen. And I found, to my surprise, the punk-metal hooks were oddly compelling, at $10 and without the lurid cover.
And it was just too damned easy to do it, since Apple already had all my particulars because of my .Mac account. Instant gratification is a dangerous thing.
(Just to show you how bad it is, 10 minutes later I downloaded
Sean M. Gallagher 