"There's a cost to the 'free' route" - your mistake here is thinking that people actually compute those costs. "Free" is a word that lights-up irrational neuron

"There's a cost to the 'free' route" - your mistake here is thinking that people actually compute those costs. "Free" is a word that lights-up irrational neurons in our brains, like "all you can eat." It almost doesn't matter the cost. That said, I can prove to you right now that this scheme will not work: On the music-side of the media world, I subscribe to Rdio. It's $10 per month for all-I-can-eat music. I listen to it via my computer, via my home stereo using Sonos (I can play up to three different songs simultaneously via Rdio using Sonos -- more than I'll ever need). And, I can download the songs to my iPhone and listen to them offline. Yet, even with Rdio and the many compatible competitors (Rhapsody, Spotify, etc.), people still download music illegally "for free." For $10 per month, I can have millions of songs available on-demand for instant playback or I can spend my time downloading songs, installing them in iTunes, syncing with my mobile device, etc. Why would anyone choose the "free" option? Personally, I don't know, but they do. One difference... In the world of Rdio, songs are not free of DRM, but no one should care -- I certainly don't even though I was one of the people celebrating the move of music from DRMed to non-DRMed -- because six million or more songs are instantly available anywhere I might want to listen to them without any hassles. If I can get at the songs anywhere, at any time, from any device, without hassle, why do I care about DRM?