The Jukebox in the Sky

Fortune Magazine’s David Kirkpatrick recently took a gander at the iPhone hype and concluded that the Apple model of music distribution is a thing of the past. “I doubt most people will want to buy or ‘own’ music at all,” writes Kirkpatrick in his article Looking Beyond the iPhone. “It will be far more useful to pick from a giant online library and listen to whatever we want wherever we are.”

The author then goes on to hold up as a model for the future RealNetworks’ Rhapsody service, which RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser calls “the jukebox in the sky.” It sounds like a great deal: $10 a month for all the streaming music you can listen to. The catch is that you don’t get to own any of it; everything resides on the Rhapsody servers, you’re just checking it out for a few minutes.

Jukebox with wingsLet’s put aside the fact that RealNetworks’ products turned into clunky, adware-laden pieces of crap several years ago with the release of their RealOne player. Let’s also put aside the fact that the company has lost so much ground in recent years to Apple’s iTunes and Microsoft’s Windows Media that they hardly have the clout to revolutionize the music business anymore.

The real (Real) question is this: Do people want a jukebox in the sky?

Kirkpatrick points to the coming ubiquity of wireless broadband networking. Within the next ten years or so, we’ll all be using 3G or WiMax or some as-yet-unchristened technology to access information anytime, anywhere. You won’t need to bring your music with you on little metallic discs — or little plastic iPods — because it will all be available for the taking on the big jukebox in the sky. Why pay to “own” music at all when downloading it is effortless? Just download what you want, when you want.

But here’s the problem with that scenario. Broadband access isn’t the only technology that’s growing by leaps and bounds. Disk storage is exploding too, and getting cheaper by the day.

As I write this, I’m looking at a last-generation iPod sitting on my desk with 30 GB of storage. Not quite enough to store my whole music collection yet — I rip my MP3’s at a full 320 Kbps, as God intended them to be ripped — but the newer 80 GB iPods might do the trick. Within a few years, we’ll be carrying 500 GB iPods. Seagate and Hitachi have 1 terabyte hard drives coming out this year. Flash memory is getting so cheap that you can find piles of thumb drives sitting next to the check-out counter at computer stores.

Guess how much data the entire printed Library of Congress contains? 10 terabytes. Yes, that’s it, 10 terabytes. Assuming we continue along this exponential trend of increased storage, you’ll be blowing your nose with 10-terabyte Kleenex soon enough. What does that mean? That means you’ll be able to carry your entire music, video, and book collection around in your pocket in 20 years. Let’s take it even further: in 40 or 50 years, you’ll be able to carry around every book ever written and every piece of music ever recorded around with you. Give it another 10 years for video.

So would you rather carry your digital media with you in your pocket, or would you rather carry your radio receiver with you and access your media on the great jukebox in the sky?

You’re going to want to carry it in your pocket.

Why? For starters, the great jukebox in the sky is a centralized system. This means that it’s easier for authoritarian elements to control. Courts rule that Negativland has infringed on U2’s copyrights by sampling their music? Easy enough to remedy — the court will just instruct Rhapsody to yank the Negativland tracks out of the jukebox. The surviving Beatles decide that the original George Martin-produced Let It Be album is an abomination and henceforth only Let It Be… Naked shall be heard? No problem — just overwrite the old tracks with the new ones.

Also, let’s not overlook the fact that a centralized system is easier for malicious hackers and pranksters to attack. And it’s much more vulnerable to the kinds of clerical errors that often plague large databases. The Gracenote/CDDB database is full of typos and just plain false information that’s damn near impossible to fix, and it only contains meta information. Imagine the chaos that would ensue when the jukebox in the sky’s files get corrupted. What if they post the wrong mix, or switch tracks by mistake? Good luck getting that fixed.

But probably the most damning factor is what I call the Greasemonkey factor. People want their own individualized, personalized filters on reality, and the tools to create them are becoming easier and cheaper all the time. This is as true of music as it is of anything else. People want to do what bassist Steve McDonald did to the White Stripes’ White Blood Cells album — they want to add their own instrumentation. They want to mix it their way. They want to mash up the Circle Jerks with Tijuana Brass and 50 Cent, and then use it as a soundtrack for the Star Wars Kid’s lightsaber battle. Theoretically there’s nothing preventing you from doing this to music from the jukebox in the sky — you could create Greasemonkey filters that work on streaming music just as easily as they work on locally stored music. But what are the copyright holders going to think of that? Are they going to make the jukebox in the sky Greasemonkey-proof? Are they going to require that you ask their permission every time you want to goof around with your friends in Apple GarageBand?

For me, the clincher of the argument is something I don’t think everyone would agree with: people like owning things. Especially if it’s just as easy, cheap, and convenient to own as it is to rent. Have you stopped buying DVDs now that they’re available on Netflix? Have you stopped buying books because they’re available at the library? Did you sell your Toyota when Zipcar came to town? If you’re like most people, the answers to these questions are no, no, and no.

We can argue about whether the world would be a better place if we didn’t have such an acquisitive mindset. We can argue about whether all cultures on this planet would ultimately share this mindset given an atmosphere of abundance and indulgence like America’s. Right now I side with the philosophy that says people are acquisitive by nature. And opening a big jukebox in the sky isn’t going to change that.

So in short: I’m sorry, but in the long run, RealNetworks’ jukebox in the sky just isn’t going to fly.