Real's announcement still doesn't address the real problems (pun intended) with subscription models (https://davidrdgratton.com/archives/2005/04/why_music_subsc.html) in my mind, but it is starting to address issues of discovery although on a freakishly trivial manner. Webjay is cool, and although I do not think it is the all encompasing Killer App (http://billboard.blogs.com/billboardpostplay/2005/03/david_goldberg_.html) David Goldberg thinks, I see it as playing an important roll in discovery. And that's my big point - discovery is critical. We have only so many hours in the day to 1. discover music and 2. listen to music that we discovered again and again.

Great question David, pity there's no clear answer at the moment. Yesterday Real announced they would offer 25 'free' tunes to their Rhapsody subscribers, but imho this is a desperate attempt from Real to gain any press while attempting to convince themselves they haven't been completely marginalized. http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D89NA7M80.htm?campaign_id=apn_tech_down As things are right now I don't buy music anymore - not because I'm not willing to, more so because I can't find anything I want in traditional music retailers or current on-line stores. Magnatune (http://magnatune.com/) offers some interesting ideas, but not necessarily the music genres I'm interested in. I tend to find my music now not by p2p, but rather by services such as WebJay (http://webjay.org/) where I can sample other people's playlists and tastes in music. It's where I discovered Mason Jennings' (http://www.masonjennings.com/) and Mylene Farmer (http://www.mylene.net/) recently. Problem for me is it really isn't easy to currently purchase their music without going to a brick and morter store.