eh, $3/month is a very fair price. lest we forget, music isn't free. providing the last.fm service isn't free either (hell, just think of how much they spent on R&D for that prestigeous black icon!!!
) seriously tho, how is this a dumb idea?
wired had a great article about how the consumer had won the digital download wars with the labels. music is now DRM-free, available in high quality encodings, catalogs are largely available, etc. the article concluded that if you're still illegally downloading music, maybe you're just a tightwad who doesn't want to pay for music at all. upside: we should get used to paying for music again... i'm still working on that myself.
jag - if the MP3 from last.fm are quieter that from other sources, it's simply the (volume) level at which they are recorded/encoded. making the levels low limits their use in other commercial purposes. you wouldn't want to make a CD from the mp3s, etc.
