I have more music than can fit on any iPod yet-- 200 gigs and counting. Not only do I have months of music I have not yet listened to, I have music in my collection that I have never even heard of. No idea how it got there.

That said, well, duh, like everybody else I like to focus in on certain albums. That's the only way to get to know one really well(*). And I make very good use of my 30 gig iPod's space-- I always have a "party" playlist of more upbeat, accessible music loaded on it, in case I am asked to plug in my iPod and don't want death metal or japanese noise or glitch techno or tracks from audiobooks or lectures to come up. I have a playlist of unplayed music that I shuffle through, waiting for gems. And I have updated the music nerd habit of having a "rotation" of 10 or 15 albums that you've been listening to heavily by having a manually-selected rotation playlist that I update every few days. When I want to just play some really wicked stuff wthout thinking about it, I need only call up my top-rated playlist. Not only that, but it's fun to go off on tangents, to think "Oh yeah, what about x" and then listen to some x, whom you haven't listened to in years. A largeish iPod lets you do this anywhere: it's nice.

So anyway, my music-nerdery makes me a bit untypical, but nevertheless I have noticed that your average iPodding civilian has similar, if less elaborated, behavior. People love trawling through their music collections sometimes.

(*Music these days has undergone massive inflation-- having an album isn't the big deal it once was. It's not like my high school days, where you would get to know every note, every credit, every detail of every album. It is too easy nowadays to forget about stuff. Proper, specific tagging, and being sure to give a high rating to really good stuff helps. But a lot of having more music that you could listen to in a year seems to be file-and-forget. Making sure that you listen to good new stuff a lot is a way of counterbalancing that.)

Good call on the music player size. I bought my wife a 4GB iPod mini. I think i use it more then she does, and both of our playlists easilly fit on the iPod with about 200MB or so to spare. We roughly have about 300 songs each on it.

Her playlist is a random collection of songs from both her CDs and mine. My playlists include one for driving and one for chilling. I listen to complete albums normally so I will copy over lots more songs on average.

If we had seperate iPods, it would take me a while to fill up even 4GB... maybe i should get the 1.5GB shuffle when its out instead. =p

Remember Nagle's Law : As storage devices increase in size, so will our unquenchable thirst for multimedia content. (I'm on my 2nd 40 gig iriver player btw).

I think acquisition patterns depends on your listening platform. On itunes, people are used to thinking in terms of a store shelf: how much can they afford. That will change as sharing techniques propagate. on the other hand, legal difficulties (such as the fact that music recordings won't go into the public domain until 2067 at the earliest will only increase the confrontations between listener and copyright owners.

For most people I've spoken to about it, the iPod experience is all about having access to your full music collection when you're away from home. That's the USP of a high-capacity MP3 player.

For people who are really into their music, it simplifies their daily life - removing the morning decision of "What music shall I take with me today?". That's the long and short of it.

Got a Dell MP3 player for my wife, specifically so we could use music from Yahoo! Unlimited, which is great for us because all our CDs are scratched and thrashed from years of being too lazy to put 'em back in the case. She's been dragging in album after album, and not anywhere close to exploiting all it's space for a flat monthly fee. Someone will crack the DRM one day, right? I've got my backlog of CVS video cameras, too, cheapo that I am.

I got to inherit the dinky old USB drive device, where I merely leave and listen a wacky mix of Elliott Smith & Elliott Carter.

As for the IPod-elite that you mention, Clive, I'm just glad they have the white ear buds in, so I don't have to listen to them talk on their cellphone.

Let's not forget about the relevance of access to media! If I had to port my vinyl collection to mp3's it would take the better part of a year. Even digitizing my CD's has taken a long-ass time and I'm still not finished. However, I've got access to friends with large media libraries that share much of the music I already own. Jacking their media has enabled me to fill my 40GB's overnight, while I still chip away at digitizing media not already included in their collection.
For the record, I've certainly pirated a few tracks in my time, but for the most part, all the music I grab from pals is music that I already own. Doing so allows me to keep getting gems on vinyl, like the Pixies album I picked up at Rotate This (best record store in Toronto) last weekend.
Perhaps the folks with 375 tracks on their ipods are the folks that just don't have any tech-saavy friends or can't be bothered to figure out the most efficient way to load their players.
The lust factor of ipods is high, but the reality is that ripping CD's is a dull, arduous task - regardless of how fast your computer is.

"The lust factor of ipods is high, but the reality is that ripping CD's is a dull, arduous task - regardless of how fast your computer is." -garthbreaks

Indeed. It took me close to a month to off and on to rip close to 400 albums, some of them double discs.

2500 songs -- legacy of a wife's 8 years in the music biz, an unhealthy but now finished obsession with Elvis, and a wholesome affection for Johnny Cash. (Both the subject of comprehensive boxed sets that just get burned in disc by disc.) I've probably heard it all at least once (product of a twice-daily 2-hour commute with lots of dozing off mid-track).

here's an interesting counter-post from last Dec. on the digital photo effect.

Too much of a good thing

\\USlacker

Jeez, always fun to find out you're an anomaly.

I just bought my first iPod, a 4GB iPod Mini, a couple of weeks ago, together with a cable to connect it to my stereo ($4.99 at Radio Shack - awright!), thereby making my CD collection potentially redundant. I knew that all of my CDs wouldn't fit on it, but I can live with that - other features make it worthwhile, and I'm surgically attached to my laptop anyway. Having just gotten my iPod, I haven't started ripping any of my CDs yet; I just transferred over what I already had on my hard drive. No additional CDs, nothing from iTunes (I want to keep my music collection, thanks).

I have more than 700 songs on it; I'm already in the 75th percentile.

The kicker? I never even tried on the headphones that came with it - I immediately replaced them with my preferred headphones, with black earpieces.

Your argument is borderline pointless. What are you arguing again? That some people have iPods just to have iPods?

I have a 700+ cd collection. I don't like carrying around a cd player or damaging my cds or their cases. I buy a cd, put it straight in the iBook, copy it to my iPod, the cd cd is filed on the shelf, and I listen to it on my iPod.

It's not that difficult.

I just thought of something. Do you think some people have $2000 computers and only use them for basic tasks like updating blogs or browsing the internet? This seems like an incredible waste. If you're not programming, performing complex mathematical operations or querying databases, I can't imagine why you would need a computer. I know dozens of girls who have over 80 GB of hard drive space, and are only using 20! This is nuts.

IN FACT, I know some people who have computers and don't even have Computer Science degrees, can you imagine such a thing!? Thankfully I have a bachelor's degree in Computer Science, so my computer is not only utilized, but mandatory. I wish I could say the same for others.

I got my 20gb Ipod for my bday in April. The reason I had to have it was because I have crappy luck with CD players, I broke so many and i was carrying around cases with 100 cds in them evry day. My CD collection is over 500 cds, my boyfriend has about 1000- needless to say my IPOD is full already which is a bummer, I might actually buy another one to add to this. The best apart about Ipod is not " just owning it " the best part was the week long road trip my boyfriend and I took , we put the pod on album shuffle ( of course we have the requisite ITRIP ) and let it ride. 5 states and didn'thave to fumble with scratching my cd collection or dragging cases upon case of cds with us like we did last year . Some people just love music, I am one of them and yes my collection is diverse AND I listen to it all - shocker huh ???

I have owned 3 mp3 players in my life. None was an iPod, and none had more than 128MB of memory installed. I've never spent more than $100 for an mp3 player, and they've all suited my needs beautifully.

Mp3 player #1: Rio Diamond PMP300, 1999: Cost me $150 with $100 off in rebates (ah, the good old Internet bubble days!). Came with 32MB, had a slot for extra memory, all together you could have 64 MB. That was enough for maybe 40 songs, so if you were on a train ride you could have a couple pretty good CD mixes at your disposal, roughly. Required a bit of updating once a week or so, but that's no problem.

Mp3 player #2: NEX iA, 2004: Cost me $70. Has no memory whatsoever, uses Compact Flash memory cards of any size, I had happened to have a 256MB card for use with my digicam. You could get like 100 songs on there. Less manipulation necessary.

Mp3 player #3: Rio Cali, 2005: Cost me $50. Comes with 128MB hard drive, with SD memory slot. I bought a 1GB SD card for $20 and so now I have 1 GB + 128MB storage on there, which is pleeeeeeeeeeeenty of room.

I've got 20GB of music on my hard drive -- I don't need it in my mp3 player at all times -- not if it costs $400 to do so.

Ånd by the way, part of the niceness of an iPod is not the quantity of music, but the enhanced experience of listening to music on it, rather than on a CD. Playcounts-- knowing when I've last listened to something, or if I have yet at all, is very important. Seeing tracknames and albums titles. Giving ratings. All this is very awesome.

Clive,

Your analysis of the iPod as snob technology is bang on. Just look at the stir it has created! - "*gasp* Not me. My iPod is full!" But perhaps people miss the point because the main source of this snobbery is not the technology, but the music. Some examples:

I have more music than can fit on any iPod yet-- 200 gigs and counting. Not only do I have months of music I have not yet listened to, I have music in my collection that I have never even heard of. - Yesno could easily demonstrate his music snobbery by mentioning any obscure artist or genre. Whether or not this is actually listened to seems to be irrelevant. Forget being a fan of the music. Possessing it seems to be the most important fact to the digital music enthusiast (many of my friends are like this). Oh, and by the way, shouldn't the music experience be enhanced by the quality of the sound (through good recording and good systems rather than compression and bad earphones) rather than by being able to demonstrate the number of times you've listened to Sigor Rós?

If I had to port my vinyl collection to mp3's it would take the better part of a year.... However, I've got access to friends with large media libraries... Jacking their media has enabled me to fill my 40GB's overnight. - The emphais for most iPod afficianados seems to be on the idea of access to quantity. Though these people may have 4 GB filled, maybe they only listen to 375 songs, just like the iPod "posers" (i.e., those with less complete libraries). By the way, Rotate this isn't the best record store in Toronto, Soundscapes is (unless you're talking about records only - even then RT is far too pretentious).

I have a 700+ cd collection. I don't like carrying around a cd player or damaging my cds or their cases. I buy a cd, put it straight in the iBook, copy it to my iPod, the cd cd is filed on the shelf, and I listen to it on my iPod. - If you buy the cd only to file it on a shelf, clearly the point of owning the "cd" (rather than just the music, which you could obtain through other means) is simply to SAY that you "own" it, and that you own a 700+ cd collection.

etc... I point these things out not to insult, but to empahsise Clive's point, which is bang on. The truth is, music snobs are the greatest of all the niche snobs I've ever met. Even if some people really are using the iPod to its full capacity, the purpose ultimately remains the same. It's membership in a club of cool cats and hip hipsters.

Music is great. It makes our lives richer. What I'm confused about is people's insistance on listening to music 24/7, as if the sound of their own inner voice would drive them mad.

You've got it all wrong. The earbuds aren't for snob appeal -- they're so we can hear instructions from The Steve.

You're just upset because you'll be left behind when the iTime comes.

Being a music "snob" is like being into comic books or wine. It's a hobby, and a somewhat socially isolating one at that. It's not meant to impress people. Good thing that, because it doesn't. No one is impressed by obscure musical taste or knowledge except other music nerds.

I'm immensely enjoying this thread!

Actually, the point I would add is that most of you all commenting here seem to be outliers -- insofar as you've got a lot more music on your MP3 players than the average person, according to that study. That doesn't surprise me; this being a geek/tech/science blog, I'd figure that readers would be early and enthusiastic adopters of new media devices.

However, merely proclaiming your individual example -- i.e. stating that you've got thousands of songs on your iPod -- doesn't address my point, because I'm trying to explain the (very limited and unverified) data:

i) The average person has 375 songs on an MP3 player -- and fully half have barely 100 songs.
ii) iPods command over 90 percent of market share for MP3 players, and most of those can hold a few thousand songs at least.
iii) Thus, the great majority of people of people buying MP3 players do not really need an iPod. A tiny, $60 flash player that holds 120 songs would do 'em just fine.

So the question is: Why do those people buy enormous, 40-gig iPods? I know why people like you with huge music collections buy 'em; it's obvious why it would be convenient for someone with a truly massive collection to have a large iPod. But why do all the other folks buy players they clearly do not need?

My hypothesis is that it's almost purely a fashion statement -- an expression of musical hipness, driven by the fact that people popularly assume iPods are naturally crammed to the gills with thousands and thousands of songs, when in fact there's a single Kelly Clarkson album rattling around in there. (No libel to Kelly Clarkson, by the way, who I really like!)

As to the comparison with people buying computers that have way more capacity than they need -- that's not a very commanding comparison, becuase of two reasons: i) Computers are indeed a fashion statement, so they fall into the same "I'm hip because I have such a badass machine even though I use like 3% of what it can do" category as the iPod. But computers aren't as public a fashion statement as an iPod because you don't carry them around with you. ii) The computer industry has actually done a pretty good job of focussing on the low end -- i.e. on boxes that are unflashy and supercheap, like Dell and the countless local "Computers R Us" operators in every town. Comparatively few people blow out on superhigh speed and memory the way they did in the late 90s, when everyone was spending $4,000 to get a screamin' 200 ghz Pentium II chip before their neighbor got it, just, y'know, because. These days, people buy the cheapest computer they can afford. The iPod phenomenon is clearly different, because people are spending a crapload of money -- indeed, a $399 iPod costs as much as a low-end computer -- to get enormously more capacity than they need.

It's quite possible that iPods will go through the same cycle computers went through in the 90s -- in which people initially spent buckets of money for hyperperformance they simply didn't need (merely because they'd feel "out of it" if they didn't have an overloaded computer), but then came to their senses and began buying $399 Dell boxen. iPods have convinced people that everyone needs to have an enormous library of music at their fingertips, even when they do not personally possess an enormous library of music. Once that cultural hallucination breaks, the market for drastically cheaper MP3 players will explode. Indeed, Apple undoubtedly knows this, which is probably why they introduced the $99 Shuffle, which holds enough songs to satisfy easily 50% of the market.

Peter made me laff ... heh.

I've noticed over the past couple of years that most people I know have been buying iPod Minis (I guess that'll bcome iPod Nanos now) precisely because they know they don't need the huge storage space of a regular iPod. Maybe the market is starting to wise up already?

"If you buy the cd only to file it on a shelf, clearly the point of owning the "cd" (rather than just the music, which you could obtain through other means) is simply to SAY that you "own" it, and that you own a 700+ cd collection."

Your argument is fucking pathetic. By it, because I buy it on cd instead of JUST the music (say in a lesser quality mp3 format), I just want the "cd." WHICH YOU QUOTE FOR NO REASON. I buy the cd because I want the music, the lasting disc, the lyrics, the booklet, the whole thing.

I don't know a better way to own music than purchasing the medium it came on. I don't want to spend money on an mp3 file (even though I may listen to one from my cd)

You make a stupid fucking point.

He is not "bang on" and just because you don't understand does not make it so.

I don't buy a cd ONLY to put it on the shelf, I never said that. Ignorant people like yourself should not be allowed to argue on the internet, you fucking prick.

You cannot isolate one part of an arugment and use that as the only claim it made. Jesus Christ.

"What I'm confused about is people's insistance on listening to music 24/7, as if the sound of their own inner voice would drive them mad."

That confuses you because you are easily entertained and most likely a very plain person.

The portability of an object does not make it a fasion statement.

^Make that fashion statement

My rant is over. It's no use attempting to convince others of anything.

Long time reader... first time commenter. :)

I'd like to touch on a few comments made here and I do realize I'm an outlier. I have a 40G iPod that is filled to capacity. I have heard every song on it at least once within the last year or so. Only part of my music collection syncs up to it based on some fancy "smart playlists" I have created.

With that said, you ask... why an iPod when a $60 flash based MP3 player will cover most peoples needs. Three reasons I think. 1) branding. It is the first product people tend to name if you ask them to name an MP3 player... if they don't say Sony Walkman of course. 2) ease of use. Sure, a quick drag and drop is all that is needed with a flash player (my kids use them), but my mom isn't going to do that. She isn't going to organize here music. The iTunes application is very handy for taking care of that mess for you. It give you access to the iTunes store and simply takes care of the unnecessary tasks in syncing/maintaining your music library to the device. Oh, and it all simply works. It can all be done with other software, but Apple has done a decent job of making it easy. Sure, I think status factors in, but the ease of use makes it an easy choice. Lastly 3) existing market share. Apple got a foothold early when there weren't any other choices and because of #1 and #2 people continue to buy them because they think they can't go wrong buying an iPod. To buy an Acme MP3 player is a risk.

Eventually, I expect something more like Yahoo Music to take it all over. Smaller MP3 players will be short lived. Imagine a service that you can listen to almost any (library size is critical) song via a device like your cell phone, but with good audio quality. Given Apples recent announcement, maybe it will be one's cellphone. With web enabled phones, I think we are just about there.

Mitch, good point about the convenience factor -- the iPod's integration with iTunes is a serious ergonomic benefit! Another reason iPods have done so well is that they're quite frankly gorgously designed: I can't quite get over how elegant my Shuffle is. In a field crowded with copycat products, Apple's superior design stands out in stark relief.

Yahoo Music is, I agree, a potential wave of the future. I've been using Rhapsody's superb music-on-demand streaming service, which lets you listen to any song in its library as often as you want for $10 a month -- a stupidly cheap detail. Granted, you have to be tethered to a computer to listen, but since I spend about 90% of my waking hours within ten feet of a computer and a broadband Internet connection, that's not a problem.

Better yet, I just discovered that Rhapsody has launced a service called Rhapsody To Go, which lets you actually load any songs you want from the entire library to your MP3 player for only $15 a month. They're DRM protected, so there's no way (no easy way, anyway) to extract them permanently onto you hard drive, but that's beside the point: It's still a pretty slender amount of money to pay each month for the ability to fill your player with any music you want, any time. That is a dementedly good deal. I'm seriously thinking of signing up, except ... it won't yet work with my Shuffle or my iPod. I'd need to get one of only a few as-yet-approved devices, such as a Dell or iRiver MP3 player. Hmmmm ....

I use my ipod for both music and to back up my computer - the easiest way I've ever come across. Every time I add music my computer gets backed up (use a nice little piece of software called pod2go). Everybody says you should back up regularly but so few do - an ipod makes it a no brainer. Just another side perk of all that space.

Okay, I was thinking about this over the last few days...

The first thing is that, for lots of people, having an iPod would be worth it if only because now you can listen to your songs in any order (even if you only have a few hundred songs). I was listening to a CD in my car and realized that I hardly ever listened to actual albums any more - it was all playlists and shuffle. If you were an early adopter, that would have meant getting all the extra memory, but the success of the Mini and the Shuffle certainly indicates that the flexibility is what people like, not just the disk space.

The second thing has to do with the white iPod earbuds. I was looking around at people at the gym and it dawned on me, Clive, that you are almost certainly undercounting people who have non-Apple headphones. First of all, you notice white headphones. Secondly, it's clear that when people have white headphones that they have iPods, but you would normally have no way of knowing if black headphones are attached to iPods or something else (assuming that the music player is in a pocket). So you really can't assess how many people have switched from the iPod earphones.

I only have one song on my iPod. More would ruin the aesthetic.

(Steve Reich. Ascetic, not anesthetic.)

Steve E. - Soundscapes?!?! WTF??? You and my ex are both part of the same cult. I swear, Rotate This is not snooty at all, the key is letting go of the ego and feeling comfortable chatting with the folks that work there. Besides, it's next door to a dirty ol' tattoo parlour - Soundscapes can't boast of a similar location located up on snooty ol' College Street, surrounded by moccha-frappa-chino-lattes... To be fair though, I can't compare CD to CD at each shop - I have a penchant for vinyl. ;-)