Imagine if you will that you are at a friends house and you want to share some music you just ripped, purchased, stole, whatever but it's not yet on your DAP device. To the Cloud! And there it is, streaming to your buds PC or DAP from your account....
I'd just go to youtube on my bud's computer, or take 2 seconds to re-steal it from a torrent site, then my bud would have it too.
The cloud is a great idea for accessing data that you created, everywhere. But music files are different. They don't have the problem of accessibility, so they don't need the cloud as a solution (unless your a hoarder and need the theoretical attachment that is the concept of 'my' data).
'My' data is very relevant with a word document you created and need to access everywhere. But 'my' data isn't necessary when it comes to a music file I can get on thousands of websites.
Your sweeping generalization points to the fact that you live in your own little world, or that your friends are just like you.. which is fine, but don' t presume to think that this is the way of things in the world and that you've got it all figured out.
Oh please. If people required ALL their music instead of playlists than the ipod would never have taken off.
Most people are perfectly fine with thousands of songs. You're a fool if you don't agree with that. Just because something is a generalization doesn't mean its wrong.
Here's a cute little scenario: You're a D.J. and have been hired to do several gigs around the city within a span of two days. So now, you can either lug around a plethora of gear including cd's or vinyl *yeah... I said vinyl* or a few external hard drives and so on OR.. you can just bring your computer, period.
And trust your job on somebody's internet connection? Doubtful.
As storage gets bigger clouds get less important. Also, a DJ needs about 4 hours of music. They don't need every song they ever downloaded. They need a lot of songs sure. But as storage gets smaller, more and more they'll just need a laptop with a big drive. That's how my friend DJ Shar does it. She has thousands of songs on her mac book pro that she DJs with. More than enough to get the job done without relying on a different internet connection every night.
Scenario #2: Party at a friends house and they ask you to bring some music. Well alright.. here's my entire collection!
Nobody cares if you brought your entire collection, or several thousand songs on your ipod playlist. They'll never know the difference unless you stay at your friend's house more than several days!
If there's a special song you wish you had though, just go on the internet and download it real quick or watch it on youtube.
Scenario #3: You go away on vacation for a week. During said vacation, you realize that your "romantic playlist" is not on your silly little iPod. O NOEZ! Too bad you didn't have the cloud at your disposal eh?
Go to Pandora.
I'm sure there are more scenario's I could cook up, but hopefully you get the point. So you may feel free to call me obsessive/compulsive, but I call you boring and lacking in vision.
Doug
Your obsessive compulsive.
Your making the mistake of thinking that your data is any different from the data easily accessible on the net.
That is true with a Word document you created. That is not true with a Lady Gaga mp3.
The problem with trying to shoehorn cloud architecture into music is that music's availability is different than personal data's availability. Anything you can get from a cloud you can get just as easily from the internet, to augment your already large collection in your ipod.
I'm just saying 'cloud' is unnecessary in this application for the vast majority of people.
The cloud is a very good idea, and while I don't necessarily trust it, it's solving quite a big problem: accessing files while away from home (and potentially safe guarding people from data loss.)
Your argument is pretty much "I can make do with what I have, i don't need it." While i can see your point, you also have to bear in mind how useful this could be.
Example: you get on the train to work, and realise you have left your laptop at home, with that important set of notes for your meeting in an hour.
Without Cloud: get off at next station, return home, grab laptop, back on train, back to work, late for meeting. Or try to remember the notes / re write from memory.
With Cloud: grab your mobile, access your online account through 3G, get your notes. your not late, no garbled notes, successful meeting.
there are so many uses for this, and Im sure that this would be useful to more than 0.0001% of the population.
Cloud is AWESOME for applications that involve data that is not already readily available across the internet, like my word files.
I put my word files and my iWeb root folder into Dropbox, so now I can work on them everywhere. Its freaking awesome.
But mp3s are just inherently different in my opinion. They're not something I modify from different places like a word file or a iWeb sites. The individuality of those things are important.
For most people, the individuality of songs AFTER several thousand of their favorites, is quite a bit less important. People can stuff weeks of music onto their ipods. That is quite enough for most people. If the opposite were true, that people were more concerned with taking ALL their music with them then they were about taking a good chunk of it, then the ipod would have never taken off like it did.
I contend that only a very small margin of digital hoarders care at all about having access to ALL their songs at all times.
Don't get mad about my diagnosis hoarders, your just 'special', not 'bad'.