Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Music Media

Review of Pay Napster 382

An Anonymous Coward writes: "A beta tester for the recently released subscription version of Napster has anonymously posted his impressions of the new service. He finds it remarkably similar to the old one, both good '... browsing through a real person's music collection, sending them messages and recommending them new music' and bad '... broken tracks, cancelled transfers and a complete inability to stream or preview tracks.' The service allows 50 tracks a month, but there was little decent content to fill those slots. Messages to other beta testers found mixed reactions among fellow users. Still, the writer holds out some optimism for Napster's chances."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Review of Pay Napster

Comments Filter:
  • by andfarm ( 534655 ) on Tuesday January 15, 2002 @06:04PM (#2845139)
    None.

    Most of the tracks on (the new) Napster are in a proprietary format, which means that (if you copied them somewhere else) they wouldn't work. At all. In fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it set off some sort of alarm. Or made your computer explode.

    AARghhh...

  • Seriously, does anybody expect this pay-for-mp3's thing to take off?

    Napster now is like a little animal that got hit by a car but refuses to die. There's blood everywhere, and it just keeps flopping around prolonging the inevitable. They're only bringing shame to themselves at this point. It's pathetic.

    Could they just hurry up and die already?
  • by VWswing ( 74185 ) on Tuesday January 15, 2002 @06:05PM (#2845153) Homepage
    I worked at Napster for a year.

    The only thing I can say is they are getting
    what they deserve. Any company that treats people
    like napster treated their employees, deserves
    to die a slow painful death, what they are doing.

    I was the 6th systems administrator in less than 2 years to quit, and apparently 4 have quit since I left. The only ironic part is after I left, they fired the main sources of problems.. their incompetent executive staff.. Their IT manager was fired thank goodness, he was a nepotism hire by their vp of engineering Eddie Kessler, who was also fired.

    Let them rot, and let the music be free.
  • by guttentag ( 313541 ) on Tuesday January 15, 2002 @06:07PM (#2845176) Journal
    If you're going to go to the trouble of paying for your music, you should at least get:

    • Something tangible that won't disappear if your hard drive crashes
    • High-quality sound (don't get me wrong... MP3s sound great, but they're not CD quality)
    • And, what the heck, it may as well be shiny, aerodynamic and mountable on your cubicle wall as functional artwork

    If only there was something like that available...

  • by diwolf ( 537997 ) <david@@@davidiwolf...com> on Tuesday January 15, 2002 @06:09PM (#2845194)
    I still can't ever figure out.. How did Napster MAKE MONEY? Or did they operate like the "Change Bank" from SNL (Saturday Night Live)..

    Customer: I was in a rush. I needed to change a $50. I wanted a twenty and two tens...

    Bank Rep: Well, our computers caught the mistake RIGHT AWAY! We made sure he got the right change.

    Customer: They helped me out when I needed change for the payphone. Thanks Change Bank!

    Bank Rep: We are asked how we make money. Volume. We simply do it on volume.
  • by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Tuesday January 15, 2002 @06:26PM (#2845332)
    Hurlig Frootmig, HitchHiker's Guide To The Galaxy Editor Emeritus of Megadodo Publications, and the being responsible for the editing of Ford Prefect's entry for "Earth" into the two-word mostly harmless, had this to say:

    We've reviewed the 5000-word review at "http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/2002/paynapste r.html", and, well, seeing as how there are a hundred billion other P2P file-sharing applications in the Galaxy (and at least a hundred on Earth alone), and only a limited amount of space in the book's database, we've had to trim it a bit.

    "Sucks ass"

  • by brogdon ( 65526 ) on Tuesday January 15, 2002 @06:50PM (#2845490) Homepage
    On how many days it takes for nap2mp3.exe to appear on usenet? Hell, I had a activation-free copy of XP Pro about six weeks before it was actually released, I would think the hacker community could knock out a .nap to .mp3 converter over a six-pack.
  • by GregGardner ( 66423 ) on Tuesday January 15, 2002 @07:02PM (#2845562) Homepage
    In fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it set off some sort of alarm. Or made your computer explode.

    It can happen. It was reported in the Weekly World News [codetroop.com]
  • by 3ryon ( 415000 ) on Tuesday January 15, 2002 @07:04PM (#2845569)
    Wasn't there something called "leech zmodem" back in the BBS days? This version of zmodem would abort the download at the very last byte, so as to fool the BBS's upload/download ratio tracking.


    That's an interesting idea. After that file has been share a few million times, the download will fly! 100:1 compression eat your heart out.
  • It' s like (Score:2, Funny)

    by da_Den_man ( 466270 ) <dcruise@nosPam.hotcoffee.org> on Tuesday January 15, 2002 @07:12PM (#2845607) Homepage
    An Ex-Girlfriend told me once.... "Just Let It Go....its over"

Suggest you just sit there and wait till life gets easier.

Working...