iTunes mini-store paranoia
The net is ablaze with accusations that the new iTunes 6.0.2 is adware and spyware. For those of you who haven't yet upgraded or noticed, iTunes now has a new feature: when you click on a song in your library, iTunes has a new little window that shows some relevant links regarding the song you have selected. For example, if I click on a Django Reinhardt song in my library, I'm presented with some links to other Django albums, a link to write a review about this particular album, and what some other listeners who bought this album also bought (à la Amazon).
I'm all for protecting my privacy, but I honestly don't feel that this is any such invasion. In fact, I'm rather fond of this feature; it opens me up to a lot of new music that I might not have otherwise come across. Some have suggested that Apple should have prompted the user before sending this information, etc. If this were the way it was done, iTunes would suddenly become nagware. Have you ever used Windows? You simply cannot get anything done because it's constantly nagging you. You have unused icons on your desktop! What should we do? Do you want to add this application to your start menu? What do you want the folder to be called? Do you want a shortcut on your desktop? Are you sure you want to do this? It really is ridiculous.
I'm reminded of the episode of Seinfeld where Jerry takes on an assistant. She is constantly confirming every little decision with him, and it drives him crazy. I feel the same way when I use Windows, and if iTunes bugged me about every little thing, I'd start to hate it pretty quickly.
Apple implemented this feature in the way they did not because they are a subversive data-collecting and abusing evil mega-corporation, but rather because they want to maintain a nice and easy experience for the people using it. If you're so god-damned paranoid that (OMG!) Apple is going to somehow save and abuse knowledge about what songs you have in your music library, perhaps you should go back to listening to cassette tapes on your rockin' ghetto-blaster. Let the rest of us normal people enjoy a nice, new feature (that can be turned off at the click of a button!) in peace. I'll have none of this shouting here!
