Does anyone here think mp3 players will ever become obsolete in the next ten or so years?  I'm talking about mp3 players in general, not just the ipod.  It seems kind of hard for mp3 players to go obsolete.  After all, where can you go after downloading songs and having 5000 songs all in one place?  It seems like we really can't do much better than that.  The only thing I can see is improvements on the mp3 player (similar to how HDTV improves tv) and no real revolutionary music device inventions.

i think its here to stay maybe not mp3 players but downloading a song to cd is here to stay, i dont think the mp3 market will grow much because most people look at other mp3 players other then ipods as cheaply made and gimmicks even though thats not true

Yes, mp3 technology will eventually go the way of vinyl records.

When?  Depends on too many synergistic factors (science, market forces) to say for certain.

What will replace it?  Probably a crystal-based memory medium that will store music/information at an atomic or near-quantum level, pushing the boundaries of how infinitesimally a bit (i.e. a "1" or a "0") can be physically represented.

And beyond THAT ... we run into ... Clarke's Law.

most people look at other mp3 players other then ipods as cheaply made and gimmicks even though thats not true
People are opening their eyes and realising there are better options than an ipod. Ipods are overpriced and not all that great compared to what else is on the market. Granted there is alot of crap out there, it's best to ask an expert or check out various ones if you are tninking of buying one.

And MP3 players are here to stay. Soon to overtake CD players as the main source of portable music (if it hasn't done so already). I. however, am still waiting for the price to lower before I consider grabbing one.

People are opening their eyes and realising there are better options than an ipod. Ipods are overpriced and not all that great compared to what else is on the market.



No argument from me there --- iPods use old-fashioned mechanical hard drives.  The state of the art today is "flash memory", which is totally solid state with no moving parts at all --- and it's widely available in many types of mp3 players.  Flash memory still can't compete on a dollar-per-gigabyte basis with the mechanical iPod, but that will change --- soon.   ;)

I think eventually some crazy new form of music storage will come out.. I mean, it's hard to imagine, but you never know.

I think eventually some crazy new form of music storage will come out.. I mean, it's hard to imagine, but you never know.
Possibly. But it's hard to imagine anything better than a tiny gadget which can hold up to 30GB of music.

Possibly. But it's hard to imagine anything better than a tiny gadget which can hold up to 30GB of music.


How about an even tinier gadget that can hold 30 PB of music?  No joke.  Wait.

How about an even tinier gadget that can hold 30 PB of music?  No joke.  Wait.
Well, yeah...

But MP3 playes are small enough now, and very easy to lose or misplace. (Of accidently stand on it because you can't see it as it's so small  :o)

Well, yeah...

But MP3 playes are small enough now, and very easy to lose or misplace. (Of accidently stand on it because you can't see it as it's so small  :o)


Cheap, disposable mp3 players holding petabytes of music. 

The players will be as small and thin as a postage stamp. 

You will peel one off a backing, stick it on your skin anywhere, scan it with a laser-scanner attached to your home computer to load your music onto it, and then you'll control it by thought. 

This is advanced (albeit speculative) neurophonic-brainwave interface engineering ... although it might sound like magic, it's perfectly feasible given the ongoing exponential bootstrapping of IT development.

And MP3 players are here to stay. Soon to overtake CD players as the main source of portable music (if it hasn't done so already).

I agree. I think CDs will become the next vinyl

I agree. I think CDs will become the next vinyl



And sooner than any of us think.

No, not for a long time.

Although I think the new trend is not in increasing storage space, but wireless connectivity. We'll no longer have to have super-sized hard-drives to store all those songs, but merely beam them in from wireless network hubs in our homes, public spaces.etc. Does bring about issues about public domain, rights.etc, though. For now, mp3 is still by far the most popular compressed format, and is likely to remain so.

Definitely.


There's a compact disc that holds 40 GB's, and it's TINY!

Not for sale, it was just an experiment

Does anyone here think mp3 players will ever become obsolete in the next ten or so years? 

No.  MP3 is a sufficently-open, and sufficiently well-documented format, that anyone with $50-100 to spend on chemicals, software, and blank programmable chips - can build their own MP3 player from scratch.

Yeah, I think it'll get so bad that you'll want to. 

The period of time from now-2010 will probably be the last time you'll be able to purchase non-iTunes (Apple's DRM) and non-MTP (Windows Media Transfer Protocol, basically Windows Media Player's answer to iTunes DRM) devices.

A device that appears to a host computer to be a USB storage device, and that plays MP3s, is a Good Thing.  When you find one you really like, get at least one.  One that takes removable media?  Get at least two.  Use both regularly.  Understand its power source.  When (not if) one breaks over the next 10-20 years, you'll have a spare good for another 10-20.  As long as you have 120-240VAC coming out of the wall, you'll be able to find a wall wart (AC adaptor) capable of producing *something* that approximates your MP3 player's battery.

Hell, as long as you have a supply of lemons (or oranges, apples, or even friggin' potatoes), and a piece of copper and a piece of zinc, you'll be able to power that MP3 player.

I imagine they will come out with something "better" (read: more controllable by the industry) soon.

mp3s as standalone devices will become less and less.  If you have a PDA, you can use it to play mp3.  Other divices like phones will start to integrate players more and more.

Players where the music is physically stored will become obsolete when streaming technology allows us to get music from hubs from online servers, where we store our collections. Unlike current radio stations (even satellite, online), one can basically select songs from this bank of songs - which will be stored on something like a website - which may potentially hold terrabytes of data. Meaning super-high quality music and lots of it!

At some point, everybody and everything will become obsolete. You can make book on that!
::)

At some point, everybody and everything will become obsolete. You can make book on that!
::)


Except death and taxes... :D

Yes one day they'll have something else that's better, technology always changes.

Players where the music is physically stored will become obsolete when streaming technology allows us to get music from hubs from online servers, where we store our collections. Unlike current radio stations (even satellite, online), one can basically select songs from this bank of songs - which will be stored on something like a website - which may potentially hold terrabytes of data. Meaning super-high quality music and lots of it!

And who'll sell you those devices?

Streaming music providers - who'll be sued into oblivion by RIAA if they don't cripple the music with DRM?

Wireless communications providers - like the phone companies that cripple the firmware on a perfectly-functional Motorola phone - so they can charge $1.00 per 30-second ringtone, and send $0.01 back to RIAA in royalties?

Your ISP?  In the fact of AT&T's opposition to network neutrality - whose lobbyists are *today* branding Vint Cerf (arguably the inventor of TCP/IP protocol) and Tim Berners-Lee (definitively the inventor of the WWW) as "luddites" in front of Congressmen too stupid to know the truth?

With all due respect (because this is _not_ a flame at you) - yeah, streaming technology's ready. But the only way you'll have anything worth streaming at any rate less than a dollar a minute is through either intellectual property infringment (downloading DRM-free MP3 encodings of music you haven't purchased), or through open source hardware hacking (you can purchase a CD-DA compliant disc, you can rip your own MP3s, but you can't play 'em back if your device doesn't have MP3 decoding capabilities -- and you can't *use* an MP3 codec free of license fees to the Germans who invented the format without building your own gadget for noncommercial purposes.  Otherwise, you're infringing on the intellectual property of the Fraunhoefer Institute just as badly as if you'd "pirated" a CD against the wishes of RIAA.) 

I've as-anonymously-as-is-possible sent some money to the Fraunhoefer Institute.  They invented MP3, and they did so without Digital Restrictions Management (DRM).  They've made my life as a music fan a hell of a lot better, and have earned every penny (and probably a heck of a lot more) I've sent 'em.  I've sent 'em more money than their license agreement would have required.  And even though what I've given 'em is a drop in the bucket compared to their gudget, I still feel like I've sent 'em less than what they've deserved.  My library is something I'd spend _tens of thousands_ to protect.

On the other side of the coin - namely RIAA's intellectual property rights?  I buy CDs and vinyl (used or new) when I can, but in terms of value-add over the past decade, I wouldn't urinate in RIAA's mouth if its' collective stomach were on fire.

Reads this thread


Laughs in 2019

Well they are obsolete in 2019! Unless you're some old school hipster who still uses one.

Reading this thread is funny because everyone was making wacky predictions and NO ONE conceived or comprehended the idea of streaming. Just makes you wonder in the future how there will be things around we can't even comprehend today. Oh and no one even thought of the idea of cell phones replacing MP3 players as listening devices too! Crazy!

Well they are obsolete in 2019! Unless you're some old school hipster who still uses one.

Reading this thread is funny because everyone was making wacky predictions and NO ONE conceived or comprehended the idea of streaming. Just makes you wonder in the future how there will be things around we can't even comprehend today. Oh and no one even thought of the idea of cell phones replacing MP3 players as listening devices too! Crazy!


Actually, surprisingly enough this guy did:


Players where the music is physically stored will become obsolete when streaming technology allows us to get music from hubs from online servers, where we store our collections. Unlike current radio stations (even satellite, online), one can basically select songs from this bank of songs - which will be stored on something like a website - which may potentially hold terrabytes of data. Meaning super-high quality music and lots of it!


But FWIW, I don't blame people back then not being able to see into the future like that. We were still under that Late 20th century mindset of physical/owned media, still being the standard. Most couldn't feasibly conceive of a world of 'buying into' or 'renting' from a service, especially since physical media like DVDs/CDs were still very commonplace, and MP3 technology was just starting to become more common. Hell VHS would've still technically had been a feasible for of video/recording not even 3 years prior to when this thread was made ;D.

Well they are obsolete in 2019! Unless you're some old school hipster who still uses one.

Reading this thread is funny because everyone was making wacky predictions and NO ONE conceived or comprehended the idea of streaming. Just makes you wonder in the future how there will be things around we can't even comprehend today. Oh and no one even thought of the idea of cell phones replacing MP3 players as listening devices too! Crazy!


Nobody seems to have learned the lesson though. You've got people today who are so entrenched in streaming that they are convinced that streaming "will always be around". Like we've reached the pinnacle of creation or something. Streaming is going to go, and probably faster than previous formats, simply because that's the way things go now. One of the earliest threads I posted here when I was new was "what will replace streaming?".

Yes.

Nobody seems to have learned the lesson though. You've got people today who are so entrenched in streaming that they are convinced that streaming "will always be around". Like we've reached the pinnacle of creation or something. Streaming is going to go, and probably faster than previous formats, simply because that's the way things go now. One of the earliest threads I posted here when I was new was "what will replace streaming?".


That is an interesting point that you do bring up. I have those thoughts to myself as well, “what will replace musical streaming?”, and thinking it’s borderline possible for that to be even replaced. However, I am then constantly reminded how people had these same exact thoughts pertaining to other technologies of musical consumption, such as how people in the 80s thought about the prospect of something replacing the cassette, or how people in the 90s years ago thought about something potentially replacing CDs. So who really knows in all honesty.

I actually made this thread not too long about this phenomenon:

http://www.inthe00s.com/index.php?topic=59978.0

Is it entirely possible that, due to laws like Diminishing Returns (where the demand for evolution becomes so high that the supply isn’t able to suffice for the demand), things such as ‘perceived’ revolutions in technology subsides over time. Thus, even if there is something that does happen to replace streaming, will that psychologically be as ‘Earth shattering’ and jarring to the mass public as the transitions of other music formats? Will there be a cultural ethos tied to a prospective musical format replacing streaming (in the same way how Cassettes, especially the Walkman and how fashionable it was for the time, were culturally engrained to the 80s or MP3s, especially the iPod and those iconic colorful iPod ads, were to the 00s)?

Is it entirely possible that, due to laws like Diminishing Returns (where the demand for evolution becomes so high that the supply isn’t able to suffice for the demand), things such as ‘perceived’ revolutions in technology subsides over time. Thus, even if there is something that does happen to replace streaming, will that psychologically be as ‘Earth shattering’ and jarring to the mass public as the transitions of other music formats? Will there be a cultural ethos tied to a prospective musical format replacing streaming (in the same way how Cassettes, especially the Walkman and how fashionable it was for the time, were culturally engrained to the 80s or MP3s, especially the iPod and those iconic colorful iPod ads, were to the 00s)?


I think that's kind of already happened. Was it really that big a deal when streaming replaced downloading? Streaming was the silent killer that subtly finished off all other formats including physical. Witness iTunes now whimpering to it's demise. But streaming too will have it's day of reckoning. And unless whatever replaces it is something hideously drastic, like the oft-joked about "implanted chip" (whenever people are asked what will replace streaming they half-joke "a chip implanted in our brains") the new thing will come along and people will just accept it because that's what mainstream "sheeple" type people do. Regardless of whether it is better or not than what came before. It's technology for technology's sake and for profit. All in the guise of "convenience".

Actually, surprisingly enough this guy did:

But FWIW, I don't blame people back then not being able to see into the future like that. We were still under that Late 20th century mindset of physical/owned media, still being the standard. Most couldn't feasibly conceive of a world of 'buying into' or 'renting' from a service, especially since physical media like DVDs/CDs were still very commonplace, and MP3 technology was just starting to become more common. Hell VHS would've still technically had been a feasible for of video/recording not even 3 years prior to when this thread was made ;D.

Ah must have missed that person. Yeah I agree with you!

Actually, surprisingly enough this guy did:

But FWIW, I don't blame people back then not being able to see into the future like that. We were still under that Late 20th century mindset of physical/owned media, still being the standard. Most couldn't feasibly conceive of a world of 'buying into' or 'renting' from a service, especially since physical media like DVDs/CDs were still very commonplace, and MP3 technology was just starting to become more common. Hell VHS would've still technically had been a feasible for of video/recording not even 3 years prior to when this thread was made ;D.


Streaming was actually around back then (Pandora launched in 2005, Yahoo! Music since the early 2000s), so it wasn't inconceivable that it would gain popularity. It did take some foresight though.

My question is, is what's supposed to replace streaming out right now?  ???

Streaming was actually around back then (Pandora launched in 2005, Yahoo! Music since the early 2000s), so it wasn't inconceivable that it would gain popularity. It did take some foresight though.

My question is, is what's supposed to replace streaming out right now?  ???

Something will replace it but we don't know yet. We can't conceive what is next. But there will be something. And if someone says nothing will replace it then they would look foolish like those in the 1990s thinking nothing can replace CDs even if they can't conceive it.

Does anyone here think mp3 players will ever become obsolete in the next ten or so years?  I'm talking about mp3 players in general, not just the ipod.  It seems kind of hard for mp3 players to go obsolete.  After all, where can you go after downloading songs and having 5000 songs all in one place?  It seems like we really can't do much better than that.  The only thing I can see is improvements on the mp3 player (similar to how HDTV improves tv) and no real revolutionary music device inventions.
Silly mid-2000s logic

Actually, surprisingly enough this guy did:

This dude did as well.


Players where the music is physically stored will become obsolete when streaming technology allows us to get music from hubs from online servers, where we store our collections. Unlike current radio stations (even satellite, online), one can basically select songs from this bank of songs - which will be stored on something like a website - which may potentially hold terrabytes of data. Meaning super-high quality music and lots of it!

I had been using Rhapsody since like 2005 and was just astonished at how you could search any popular song and play it on your computer just like that!

Streaming was actually around back then (Pandora launched in 2005, Yahoo! Music since the early 2000s), so it wasn't inconceivable that it would gain popularity. It did take some foresight though.

My question is, is what's supposed to replace streaming out right now?  ???


Your guess is as good as mines. Perhaps chips implanted in people's brains ??? A bit extreme, I know.



This dude did as well.
I had been using Rhapsody since like 2005 and was just astonished at how you could search any popular song and play it on your computer just like that!


I think that's the same dude. I checked his profile, he's about 33 now, so he was in his early 20s at the time. I guess young people saw the 'writing on the wall', given they were more tech adept than the older folks (the answers from some of the users back then, assuming they were Gen Xers mainly, were laughable ;D). And yeah, I never really used Rhapsody, but I knew few guys that did back in the early 2010s. The concept seemed stupid to me back then, but looking back in retrospect, it was genius.

Does anyone here think mp3 players will ever become obsolete in the next ten or so years?  I'm talking about mp3 players in general, not just the ipod.  It seems kind of hard for mp3 players to go obsolete.  After all, where can you go after downloading songs and having 5000 songs all in one place?  It seems like we really can't do much better than that.  The only thing I can see is improvements on the mp3 player (similar to how HDTV improves tv) and no real revolutionary music device inventions.


I know this is going to sound crazy, but phones will play music. Not only that, but phones will be able to access the internet and stream music over a high speed cell network known as "4G".


mp3s as standalone devices will become less and less.  If you have a PDA, you can use it to play mp3.  Other divices like phones will start to integrate players more and more.


Edit: Right on the money! And 13 years earlier than I said it.

Damn, I want to go back to '06 and live a full and rich live instead of what I did live.