Radiohead’s Risky Idea Has a Few Big Flaws

So the lads in Radiohead decide to do something crazy: release a full album online, and allow people to decide what they should pay for it. That’s right, you can download their album and pay nothing for it. Ballsy concept, but it’s massively flawed in one way: there’s no way to listen to the songs on the album first! If you’re going to let people pay whatever they want, shouldn’t they be able to hear what they’re buying first? It seems rather bizarre that they’d not have some sort of embedded player to let me hear what I’m about to buy. I decided to go ahead and pay 1 British Pound for the album (about $2.50 CAD) since I had no idea what I was getting – if I could have heard it first, I would have paid closer to the price of a CD (around $12 CAD). I tried to check out, but their system demands the registration of an account, my address, and even my mobile phone number. What the…? Sorry Radiohead, you’ve made the process too frustrating – I don’t want your album that much.