Unhandled Exceptions

Why? Well, I’ve had too many horrendous experiences with their product to continue putting money into it. The most recent experience put me over the edge.

My computer HD crashed. Not a few things went missing, the drive just crapped out. I’ve tried all manor of recovery (save sending it somewhere and paying over $100 for the $30 in songs I’m missing) but no luck. I have the majority of the songs I’ve purchased, but I’m missing everything since my last music backup, which was the end of April.

I used to be able to re-download tracks from Rhapsody. Apparently, they very quickly removed that feature when they introduced their MP3 downloads. Now, I don’t mind that much, except for the fact that I am know out $30 in songs because they changed their policy and don’t have a backup. I believe most of the songs I purchased still had DRM, which means they definitely have a record of what songs I bought, since I have to authenticate to play them.

I contacted customer service and got the canned response which basically said “Sorry.” I currently have about $40 in credit there, and I can guarantee that, when that credit has run out, I will never use Rhapsody again.

Overall, I feel as though the music industry is in a sad state of affairs. This whole DRM/No DRM stuff makes me want to go back to CDs, but at $18 a pop for an album with mostly filler garbage, that just won’t fly. I already pay Sirius for my radio entertainment, so I’m not going to shell out another $10 a month so that I can subscribe to a music service, especially since there is no way I buy more than $120 in music a year. And Rhapsody’s answer to “My hard drive crashed, can I re-download my songs” is pretty much a big f%$% you, which only angers and frustrates me even more.

I guess I can piss and moan all I want, but it’s not going to change. However, I will not go back to Rhapsody, and I urge anyone else who has them to take a good look at your membership with them and see if you can’t get better customer services somewhere else.