How To Try Spotify Immediately, No Matter Where You Live

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/03/how-to-try-spotify-immediately-no-m atter-where-you-live/

It no longer works, so don’t trash your mouse or trackpad clicking away.

But read this article, read the comments. What we’ve got here is demand. For a legal service. Not yet launched in America.

Demand. That’s not only the foundation of the music business, but every business. You think record retail is a gauntlet? Try getting a product in a supermarket. You pay a slotting fee, and if it doesn’t sell, you’re yanked from the shelf, no matter how much money you want to throw at the proprietor. Supermarkets only want what the people want.

And the people want Spotify.

Isn’t this how the music industry got in trouble? By refusing to deliver what the public wanted? First with Napster, then with DRM-free tunes? Eventually the music business comes around, even stopping the dreaded RIAA suits. Why wait now? Why not allow Spotify to launch and ride the wave. Which for all we know may have the lifespan of MySpace, Spotify being superseded by even a better service.

No one computes on OS 9. Or Windows 3.0. But that’s what the CD is. That’s how the rights holders operate. Afraid of the future, of what could be lost, they try to prevent it from happening. Kind of like Warner and NetFlix. Yup, if we delay the rentability of titles then people will just buy them. Huh? No, they’ll just STEAL THEM!

Technology moves faster than ever before. The landscape is littered with the detritus of software that was once king and is now history. Like WordStar. Hell, remember when everybody used a dialup modem to access AOL?

Spotify is not stealing. In its free version it allows people the functionality of iTunes paid for via advertising. Maybe not paid enough, but once you get people hooked they’ll pay for usabilty, functionality, and access on their mobile devices. Hell, isn’t this how Apple won?

If you don’t love Spotify, you just haven’t used it. Just like if you didn’t love the original Napster, you never used it. We’ve got people clamoring for the product, in a way they used to desire our acts, when they had something to say, when they weren’t “brands” eager to tie in with corporations. When you’ve got demand you feed it, you don’t ignore it.