Hey, I know it's been a couple months, (I was out of the country for a while and kind of forgot all about this topic). But I was reading an article about YouTube the other day and it brought up some fresh thoughts that seemed bump-worthy. (YouTube is experimenting with higher quality videos.) Besides, it's my topic and I'll bump if I want to. You would bump too if it happened to you! (Ahhh, is anyone old enough to get that? )
Anyway, I guess it just made me think about the argument that it would cause logistical problems. It's not like YouTubers who submitted clips in a low quality form are really upset over the upgrade - it's just a technology upgrade that was to be expected. The thing is, while MP3 is pretty much ubiquitous, more and more people want better quality or smaller size, even if they don't understand exactly how it works yet. (Honestly, do you think all the people who buy an HDTV realize that they're not taking advantage of it when they watch (unbeknownst to them) standard definition material like DVDs and regular satellite TV?)
So, as far as it only being appreciated by a niche of people, I kind of have to disagree. I would agree that only a small (but growing) niche of people understand what lossless files are and know to take full advantage of them at this point, but there are many people who just "want better quality" or "want smaller files".
I'm about to quote you a number of times, zircon. I consider all of your points to be valid and am not trying to argue with you at all - I'm just presenting my thoughts on the issues you remarked about.
Aw, but Grandma just bought Bob that 2GB player, and Bob has enough trouble paying for college without having to worry about buying another (still rather expensive) MP3 player. (No, I'm not Bob - this is still just a hypothetical. ) And, like you said, people don't swap files/CDs around their players so often these days (it's inconvenient) so, all the more reason for Bob to want all of them on there at once.And really, when you add up the niche that specifically wants lossless, and the niche that specifically wants OGG, and the niche that specifically wants 320kbps MP3, etc, etc, etc, you end up with a fairly significant "niche". Many people want music in a variety of formats for a variety of reasons. Lossless files are a one-size-fits-all solution that could address all of them.
Many players support formats other than MP3 (AAC and WMA are very common, both being superior to MP3) and often the software that comes with these players allows users to convert to those formats without even realizing it. Firmware updates can also make literally dozens of other formats available. (Anybody else a Rockbox user?) If, for nothing else, to preserve the original remix perfectly and retain it in the event that, someday, alternatives to MP3 are utilized. I'd agree with your estimate. But color TV was adopted, despite the fact that most of the material of the time was black and white. The same is gradually happening with high-definition television today. The quality lost in many past remixes may indeed be irretrievable, but why doom all future submissions to the same restrictions when the technology now exists to preserve them perfectly? This I definitely understand. I've been a victim of plenty uncomplete torrents myself. But don't forget the hidden distribution that goes on on P2P networks and the like. I think just about anyone who can use torrents can use Limewire, and speaking just for myself, if lossless downloads were available, I'd share them on those networks whenever I was on the 'net. If torrents just turn out to be out of the question, maybe a limited number of lossless downloads per day could be permitted by HTTP.Anyway, everything aside, would it hurt simply to allow (not require) lossless submissions? Even if they aren't used for now, at least more remixes would have the potential to be distributed this way if it becomes more plausible in the future.