I've recently purchased a nice, small MP3 player, and have been considering getting some spoken-word content for it. Yet content publishers are just stupid and greedy, and apparently either think we're stupid, or don't want to make money. (I suppose we'll have to let the market decide which.)

For example, consider Freakonomics, a book I have absolutely no intention of purchasing. Yet, anyway. Audible.com wants to sell you a copy-protected version, which you can only play on a few select devices, for $20.97. If you want to move to a different computer, or different MP3 player someday, good luck with that. If you want to play it under Linux, forget it. If you want to burn it to a CD for that road trip in a friend's car which only has a CD player, give it up. If you want to back it up to a disk in case you lose your computer or OS, I'm guessing you'll probably never be able to play it again. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

And what are the company's costs? Do they have to drop the file to a CD? Print a label? Encase it in plastic? Warehouse a physical object? Ship it around the country once or more? No.

So, what does the old-fashioned CD version cost? You can get it new at Amazon for $19.77 -- over a buck less, and thus still cheaper even with the $1 shipping fee -- and used for $15.45. And I can keep it ad infinitum, back it up, drop it to an MP3, give it away to a friend when I'm tired of it, whatever. It sells for slightly less despite the higher actual cost.

So yes, let's all run out and pay far more for a product which is worth less, and does less. That's very sensible. The only way to justify that, as far as I can see, is if you just can't bear to wait a few days for the disc to be delivered, and can't stand the idea of having to rip the CD yourself.

So, as I said before, either we're stupid, or these firms need to go under. Only time will tell which is the case. Maybe someday, someone will sensibly start passing those savings along.

But I won't hold my breath.