Money for Nothing and Your Kicks for Free


Wherein Our Heroine Finds Something a Bit Silly.
Recently, As The Apple Turns had an article about several tracks, each of which could be bought at iTunes for $0.99. All together, these tracks entail 6+ minutes of total and utter silence, worth $8.91 US. If you also get the "clean" versions (three of the soundless tracks are, apparently, marked "EXPLICIT"), you can pay another $2.97 for Pat Robertson and Tipper Gore-approved silence.

In and of itself, that's an amusing little nugget - but it got me considering how many other "nothings" we pay for day to day. We've gotten used to paying more for water than for water with sugar in it. You can pay a mint for shoes that look like they're not there. Cell phones are getting small to the point where they hardly exist, yet somehow they cost more and more. Probably because they keep including services nobody wants. You can even go to a bar where the bartender slings air instead of cocktails.

The audio "nothings" don't end with tracks filled with sonic absence - "noise canceling" headphones cost a mint compared to regular headphones.

Years ago, "nobody" would pay for television. Now, if you're not paying at least $40 a month for 100 cable channels (most of which are broadcasting nothing at any given time), you are definitely not keeping up with the Joneses.

It's not particularly amazing that people are asked to pay for these things: marketers have been successfully selling nothing to the public since long before the pet rock. But has there ever been a time before where so much of the world shelled out so much so regularly for nothing at all?

What a privileged life I'm leading - aside from the dog occasionally tearing around the house, there's plenty of silence here. Come on over - hits of live acoustic absence are only $50 for five minutes....
Posted: Tuesday - February 10, 2004 at 07:33 AM         | |

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