In which I pit businesses that don't want my money

The BBQ Pit
#1

…and sometimes support legislation to prevent others from selling me stuff they don’t want to sell me.

– Exhibit A: Florida’s alcohol industry. Apparently no wine store in Brevard wants to sell me Cru Beaujolais, (although apparently a place in Orlando carries it,) which is all well and good if I were able to buy it online like a civilized person. No, in what is probably an unholy alliance between retail wine shops and teetotallers, I’m kindly prevented from doing that. I wouldn’t be pissed quite so much if they were actually willing to sell it to me.*

– Exhibit B: Gambling. Again, it’s all well and good to prohibit online poker, and that WOULD lead me to spend more time in casinos, IF there were any non-Texas Hold Em games available in person, which there AREN’T. I’ll bet (heh!) that anti gamblers and casinos both support the ban on online gaming, which would be understandable if they WANT to take my money, which they don’t. In this case, it’s partly supply and demand but still, I’M NOT SPENDING MONEY AT YOUR CASINO FOR JUST TEXAS HOLD EM. Okay, once in awhile I’d play hold em for variety’s sake but no more than 10% of the time.

– Exhibit C: Myspace. A few years ago their business model apparently allowed free MP3 downloads on bands pages. Now they have apparently moved toward adding the songs to your Myspace Player, or whatever some sort of online proprietary jukebox. Not only can’t you download MP3’s usually, but you cant’ buy the tracks even if you want to, that I’ve seen at least. Apparently Myspace doesn’t want my money either, as I’ve TRIED to buy the tracks that they used to let me download for free but I can’t. At least they didn’t support legislation outlawing MP3 sales.

– Exhibit D: Colly Strings. One of the bands I am complaining of at Myspace: lots of songs that I can’t download for free or money: just a lot of samples that I can add to my OH SO NIFTY Myspace radio (NOT!) But they went one better and started up a crowdsourcing effort to fund their first album. As they are a local Northern Ireland band I sent them a note askign them if I chose the CD option (~10 pounds or so) if they could ship to America. No answer at all. Apparently Colly Strings doesn’t want my money either!

*Technically, I’d be pissed more, using the British sense.

#2

Those bastards. You should give your money to me, and you’ll feel better!

#3

http://www.musicglue.com/collystrings

#4

You are in Florida and the Guys DON’T have a floating game you can play in? They are happy to take your money and won’t say anything to your face about how Texas Hold 'Em is a pussy game. :smiley:

Once saw a book for children that provided cards, chips, and Texas Hold 'Em instructions for the little tykes. While I applaud the publisher’s effort to teach kids a trade, it places Texas Hold 'Em in the same class as Old Maid.

#5

People still use MySpace?

#6

It seems to be really big with indie bands and artists, probably due to the MP3 download model described by the OP. I can’t think of any other reason to set up shop there; I thought MySpace had become a tribute to website design circa 1999 (music plays on loading! piles of random animated GIFs! at least eight different fonts in five different non-complimentary colors!).

#7

Drat, that got my hopes up, their facebook page just has an option to listen to yet another online radio, plus has links back to their myspace page, plus links to purchase stuff online…their only single which I already have. But thanks for the link.

#8

After years of assaulting my eyeballs and patience, they’ve finally succeeded in stopping me. I don’t want the frustration of getting my hopes up only to be dashed all the time, so I won’t even click on a mySpace band link anymore, because even if they are good I 90% of the time won’t be able to download anything by them.

#9

I really thought this was going to be a parody thread of Ambivalid’s experience with the gym that seeks to exclude the bodybuilder type of customers.

And I was going to say that maternity clothes stores really piss me off.

#10

Me too. Why can’t pregnant women just go around naked like they do on magazine covers?

#11

Getting rid of the straight forward free downloads pretty much killed myspace overnight.