Still pondering just how long you can put off upgrading any form of Windows. I'm a gamer and that's all that really ties me to Windows anymore.

I used Ubuntu and then worked with Gentoo's high learning curve in favour of an OS that customizes itself to *my* system, not to Joe Name Brand system that will rarely be able to grow out of its hardware, or upgrade without loads of hassle.

If Windows' greatest flaw were to be pointed out, I think it's how they seem to be 5-10 years behind what a real user wants out of their system, or could want. The only thing it has is multimedia on its side, but in the end, I think it may not be enough to really pull them out of their old fogy image.

I had a feeling that there had to be a catch in all of this freedom.

It does seem like potential risk is as good as 100% exploitable risk in their eyes. This mixture of tech and tech ignorance is painful to watch. It could be a hard thing for the old boys in the government to wrap their heads around.

I think it's because the music industry may be *too* used to the 'upgrade = more cost = more money'. The last upgrades were on actual physical mediums. Like vinyl to CDs, they want MORE profit to make up for manufacturing costs. But how much actual manpower would it take to make a new set of files, or to receive those files from the source again? I doubt it would cost as much as it did for changing actual physical music mediums, so is an 'upgrade' cost really necessary?

Perhaps Apple has to pay this to the industry for them to feel like they're still doing something like the old model of business. If the change from physical to digital music has proven one thing, it's that the music industry is *still* stubbornly digging its heels in and being dragged micrometre by micrometre into the 'new age'.

Either that, or Apple is just trying to cash in on distributing unbroken files. DRM on music files is like paying for a car you can't take outside of city limits, or that only runs on Mondays. Of course, it makes people upset. So what do they do? Make us pay *more* for a FIXED product, which is what we should have gotten in the first place.

It's pathetic.

You've definitely hit on the crux of the problem. But I also find another: trying to keep family members who are computer-noobs out of trouble whilst signing up for such sites. It's easy to find the base functionality of the site squeezed out by Apps or Plugins (or even Add-Ons, for new IE-to-Firefox users).

To figure out exactly what these sites are for is getting quite difficult. Some use them for the bells and whistles more than for the reasons the sites were actually designed for. Guess that's another LARGE bit of chaff to find the few wheat grains in.