There is one quote in particular from Babylon 5 that Steve's letter reminds me of. It's from Ambassador Kosh:
"The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote."
I'm not sure if we've reached the threshold of the "avalanche" yet in the music industry (specifically), however I can't imagine it's too far off, both based on my own passively self-collected anecdotal data and that which is presented in Steve's letter.
For my part, even though I own to 1 GB iPods (Shuffle and Nano) not one song that I possess have I obtained from iTMS. Both of my players are, most of the time, somewhere upwards of 60-70% full, and sometimes even more than that. It also goes without saying that none of my music is DRM'd, and my own opinions and "politics" aside from the moment, if past behavior is any indicator of future action, then there's no reason for me to believe this is going to change any time in the future.
Someone else said that DRM only affects, and largely only impacts, law-abiding, decent people. Steve's said that the super-majority of music being distributed today is, by definition, non-DRM'd. And that's the real irony, isn't it?
And as for Steve being DRM/non-DRM "agnostic", I think his comments throughout, and especially towards the end, contradict this. Steve is personally clearly pro-non-DRM; he merely has been going along with it because he's had no practical choice, especially where getting Apple established in the music business was/is concerned. However, one does have to wonder how much more "established" Apple needs to get at this point, and therefore what more reason they have to bend over and drop 'em for the entertainment industry.
I'm not saying there wouldn't be reprocussions; clearly any decision that Apple makes will involve some degree of risk. Another possible approach, provided that Apple's license with the Big 4 doesn't preclude it (and it would have been interesting to see Steve comment in his letter on this) would be to introduce, as others have suggested, other labels and artists who are willing to go DRM-less on their music. However, when it comes to this, I believe there are some issues.
First, though, I need to say the following: I do not regard myself as being a perfect person in any sense of the word, and while not personally egotistical, part of what I'm about to say cannot be said simply without sounding egotistical.
1. Most people (of the ones I know and/or have met over the years) are any combination of the following: too stupid, too lazy, too busy, too uninvolved, too uninterested, too unsavvy, to explore a tool they're given beyond the basics needed to operate that tool, and that's assuming they operate it "at all".
2. The I.Q. of many of the intelligent posters here, myself included, blows (or comes damn near to blowing) the bell curve. In my own experience, most of the people I meet who surround me on this planet are little more than ignorant, self-absorbed, mentally inferrior sheep. To expect them to stand up for themselves in any but the most immediate of senses is, quite frankly, to delude one's self. They won't, and they don't.
3. Putting I.Q. aside, the education system in this country (the U.S.A.) is horrible and does less and less every year to actually teach people anything. Through no fault of their own, the average education of people is on the decline.
4. It's only the voice of the screaming super-minority in this country which gets anything done, when it gets done at all. Anyone here can go on and on and sound oh-so-righteous and pious about liberty and rights and free-will determination to do things. However, most people in this country (and maybe even around the world) seem to go on in blithe ignorance of this and, to all appearances, are little affected by it. I think the record companies basically know that, other than a little bit of bad press that they can usually spin as being from people who are just rabble-rousers, they can do whatever they want and the "dumb, fat and happy" majority out there will just automatically go along with it.
5. There's no way that Apple can replace their content (either voluntarily or involuntarily) with non-mainstream stuff. Mind you, I'd hapilly buy Sam Pacetti or Acoustic Eidolon or Mindy Simmons or Mark Cairn's new Airwolf Themes II or any of a number of other artists' CDs from iTMS if they offered them, and offered them DRM-free. But I'm the exception.
6. What Apple should do (as an adjunct to their overall plan) is to make as big a stride as they can in getting as many willing people as possible savvy about alternative choices in music. And in that respect, I support the prior poster and some of the online talking heads who have suggested Apple promote small label/indie artists in a big way. Of course, there's no way to know whether Apple's contract with the Big 4 allows this or not.
