Amazon.com is probably the last survivor of online music retailers who were around during the birth of the interwebs. (R.I.P. CDNow) I remember being a routine Amazon visitor throughout my 20th Century childhood to prescreen potential album purchases in revelatory 30-second excerpts.
Now, in the latest death knell for compact discs, Amazon has unveiled AutoRip.
For those of you who still insist on buying CD’s, Amazon AutoRip will now instantly give you MP3’s of whatever album(s) you purchase, so you don’t have to wait for the music to ship to your house. Not only that, but if you’ve been around since Amazon’s aforementioned humble beginnings, AutoRip will give you free MP3’s of every single CD you’ve bought from Amazon since 1998.
That’s some mighty good market adaptation, right there.
I have a feeling Amazon won’t be going away anytime soon.