Thank you. This made my day!

Conversely, I’m amused by the approach http://www.damnationbooks.com/ is taking with their eBook launch – the very first download of a new title is free, then the cost increments by a nickel with each successive download, up to a cap – so they are encouraging the people who are chasing the buzz. Biz-arro

About capacity-based systems, I could easily see paying a fee based on my portable/offline device, since keeping it stocked is an important bottleneck. On my PC I can easily find new sources, but offline I need and am willing to pay for more service.

Part of the deal there is that I use the device at times when I can’t fiddle with the music, like driving and working out. If the song file is corrupted I don’t have spare attention to find a new song.

Generally, in this model, the ideal user would be someone geared towards hearing new things every month. But, unlike with Netflix DVDs, with a virtual box, there’d likely be plenty of (virtual) space for long term holding of favorites, etc.

Another comment about these kinds of models: they potentially leave more room to allow for sharing. E.g., in a capacity based system, people could trade music between each other’s virtual boxes, and the system would not have to monitor that, and still could easily figure out how much to charge everyone (simply: based on capacity).

A variant: you could throw bandwidth in there as well: e.g., 10 GB of storage and 5GB of trade between your friend, each a month.