Bomb warning

There's been plenty of talk the past couple days about the new "free" music service from Universal.

I don't see what the point is. A lot of money and effort is being put into something which will clearly fail.

Three reasons why:

1. The "free" music isn't really free. It is tied to commercials. Before you listen to the songs, you have to listen to ads. Even radio isn't that bad (and people are already abandoning traditional radio anyway).

2. You have to return to the site once a month to "validate" your music in order to keep listening to it. The music is tied to all kinds of DRM so that it can't be listened to whenever and howver you want. What's the point, then?

3. The music will not play in the iPod. You know, the music player with some 75% market share. The one that most high school and college kids own.

Game. Set. Match.