iamthejeff

The only thing I've ever bought on iTunes was a Smashing Pumpkins compilation called Rarities and B-sides. It was a 114 song compilation of hard-to-find songs spanning their entire career from 1989 to 2000. Some songs weren't that rare, but there were a few that I otherwise would have no chance of hearing unless I paid over $300 for a used vinyl copy of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness on eBay. Anyway, the compilation was only around $10-$20 at the time and was exclusively for sale on the iTunes store. So I bought it.

Skip ahead a couple years to present day, I find myself wanting to listen to those old songs again. The only problem is that in the past few years, I've reformatted my computer several times and I seem to have misplaced the files. No biggy, right? I'll just go back to the iTunes store and download them again. Wrong. Not only is the album now only available in the US, but the entire compilation now costs a whopping $119. Even if I lived in the States, I'd have to make a fairly serious financial decision if I wanted to listen to these songs again. Yeah, there are 114 songs, but even still, how do they honsetly justify this? It is just some digital files. I don't even get a fun booklet to flip through, here.

Curious if I could find the album anywhere else, I checked out Amazon. Turns out they do sell it, but the price isn't much better:

Price: $103.85
Album Savings: $8.91 compared to buying all songs

Thanks for the great deal, Amazon.

I am glad I only made this mistake once, and I seriously feel bad for people whose entire music collections are composed of digital downloads, especially if they contain DRM. I am reminded of an incredibly appropriate xkcd comic, and it's the same reason why I still buy CDs. Even without DRM, the whole system is incredibly flawed.

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