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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dannyalcatraz" data-source="post: 5612351" data-attributes="member: 19675">Not at all.I'm an entertainment lawyer, so I'm constantly advising my clients to use digital media as a secondary or even primary means of advertising and/or releasing their products.But it's not for me.I'm not saying that subscription models are inherently ephemeral, nor am I saying that I don't have such things in my life.I subscribe to F&SF Magazine, for instance.  And others.  Some are even in dual-format form.(BTW, a mortgage or car note is not a subscription, it's the repayment of a loan over time.  AND you get a physical product.)I'm saying that the price for electronic publications (esp. those whose content I intend to keep for decades) is too high, and I'm not paying it.  Ditto online games.  I'm saying that I don't find much significant value in having books & magazines tied to electronic formats, and so far as I can see judging from the trends, that price isn't going to get to where I'd find it worth paying.  It's a non-starter for me.To date1) Experienced it via a Droid.  Quite unimpressed- cheerily rerurned to a dumb phone and bought an iTouch (which is what I'm using right now).  The extra $360/year isn't worth it to me.Should I become someone's employee and they want me to have web access 24/7 at that price, they can pay for it.  I won't.2) Uncapped data plans are an endangered species.  Verizon just announced they're ending theirs, and AT&T's disappeared a while ago.  <a href="http://moneyland.time.com/2011/06/23/why-verizon-dropped-its-unlimited-data-plan/" target="_blank">http://moneyland.time.com/2011/06/23/why-verizon-dropped-its-unlimited-data-plan/</a>Read it already.Deep sea mining- we're talking 6000 ft down, as I recall- is both dangerous and expensive.  The main potential benefit of that deposit is that it may reduce or eliminate the Chinese stranglehold on things like lithium.It does not, however, do anything to reduce the prices of material like gold or platinum, nor the need for petrochemicals used to make the lightweight, non-conductive plastics used for housings, etc.  And oil isn't exactly getting any cheaper or more common.  Nor does it affect the environmental or political effects the demand for such materials generate.Yes, over time, recycling will reduce those impacts, but at this point in time, most gold and platinum is still mined, not recovered, and there are no commercially viable substitutes for plastics.</blockquote>

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