I'll buy that for a dollar.

Download Apple's iTunes. Buy songs you like for $0.99. If Apple leaves no other mark on the universe (and I'm not saying they won't), they will have forcefully punted the music industry into the digital age. The industry has been too busy kicking, screaming, wailing, bitching, moaning, lying, cheating, and exploiting to recognize the obvious: hundreds of millions of people will spend money on music. Digital music. Music they can download. Songs they like.

Now, some will argue that I'm being premature. The RIAA is still in full-throttle tantrum mode, to be sure. This has been, is, and will continue to be the opposite of a "smooth" transition. But the writing isn't just on the wall. It's installed on my PC. I'm listening to it right now. Others will argue that it was napster, and the P2P threat in general that crotch-kicked the music industry into the digital age. I'll grant napster its catalyst role, but I believe that it's Apple's common sense offering that will prove the engine of change. The P2P war has been raging for the last several years, with no end in sight. A certain percentage of the population had reconciled themselves to illegitimately possessing music, and the RIAA had sworn to eliminate it.

The rest of us were watching from the sidelines.

No, napster was the requisite martyr, but it could not have done what iTunes can do, which is to get me to download music. Is it ironic that I wouldn't get songs for free from napster, but I'll buy them for $0.99 from iTunes? No. No it isn't. I try to be socially responsible. All things being equal, I think people will choose to be socially responsible rather than not. Granted, that threshold of equality is pretty small, and it doesn't take much for people to choose convenience over responsibility. That's why our automobiles average only slightly better fuel efficiency than they did 100 years ago. But I think that $0.99/song is within that threshold for most people. Many people, myself included, have made the argument against the record sales model, against being forced to pay $20 for one song we liked and a dozen we didn't. We've been offering our money for years now, if only someone would just offer a fair deal. Well, Apple's offering, and I'm buying.

My only concern is that artists still won't be compensated appropriately. I think it required a respected company with sufficient market influence to make this work, but it's that same kind of company that will not fully break the dictatorial grip that the RIAA holds. Sure, as consumers, we'll finally get our $0.99 songs, but the other side of the cash register hasn't changed. Has the fight been won if you're still paying the devil? The true solution envisioned by many was the utter elimination of the middle man, the greedy, fat-fingered landlord of Music. Unfortunately, I don't think we'll see the full, necessary, and ultimately unavoidable revolution anytime soon. Perhaps I'm wrong about this. I'd like to be. Before I die, I'd like to see a small portion of my $0.99 go to the entity that maintains the database and provides the bandwidth, and the rest of it go to the musician.

To wrap this up, I want to point out that I think we're witnessing the same legitimization effect for GNU/Linux. A million zealots proselytizing their superior software can't kill Microsoft any more than a million "criminals" could kill RIAA. But the unabashed and increasing corporate adoption of GNU/Linux can have the same market effect as Apple's iTunes. America, if not the world, is too conditioned and hypnotized to embrace a truly non-capitalist movement. But when IBM tells us something works, we listen. Just today, I saw a Dell commercial that advocated Linux. A Dell commercial! The writing is on the wall.