“As we celebrate mediocrity all the boys upstairs want to see/ How much you?ll pay for what you used to get for free…”
That lyric comes from an atypically insightful song by Tom Petty called “The Last DJ.” In it he thoroughly bashes the music industry for shifting away from personality-based radio over to robotic, highly-programmed stuff – paying in general for things that used to be free.
Take, for instance, satellite radio. I have listened to it and do think it’s pretty cool (although with an iPod, I feel it’s redundant for me.) But I also have a hard time imagining coughing up a monthly fee and bucks for a receiver. I have a radio now, it functions, end of story. And while there isn’t as much appeal in seeking out local stations as there used to be (allegedly,) one can still try to seek them out on road trips. But there ain’t much in the middle of Nebraska.
The other “pay for free” item is… a web browser. Ryan’s a big supporter of Opera, which is a fine program but not my cup of tea. I primarily use Safari although it has its flaws which bug me. The biggest one was due to a software update, causing silly connection “errors” left and right. So I figured I’d try out OmniWeb, which is a $30 piece of software. I’m in day four of a 30-day trial and, I’ve got to admit, I like it a lot. But there’s still a part of me that has a hard time thinking of paying that for software which duplicates what Safari and Firefox do for zilch. OmniWeb does seem worth it, so far.
And don’t get me started on bottled water.
Am I the only one who has problems with this?
Posted in Everyday Life