Up Yours, Memorex

Targeted ads are all the rage, these days. Rather than mercilessly bombard an anonymous individual with as many ads as possible, in the hope they’ll see something they want to buy, it makes much more sense to mercilessly bombard someone with ads you think they’ll like.

Let me state for the record, that I hate advertising. I would like just once to sit through a TV show, a movie or website, without someone trying to sell me something.

You see, I saw something this morning that struck me as totally dishonest, and designed purely to trick the uninformed.

Today, a game that MC Etcher sent me arrived by mail (By the way, thanks Mike!)

Included with the game, on a CD-R, was a patch for the game. I looked closely at the front of the CD-R, and saw that it was a Memorex ‘Music’ CD-R.

Before I begin here, let me be 100% clear that I am in no way calling Mike dumb, stupid or a ‘Noob’ for buying a ‘Music’ CD-R. The fact it’s a computer file on the disc proves that he‘s not. I’ve also bought ‘Music’ CD-R’s myself, simply because they were the cheapest at the store.

Here’s the thing. A recordable CD is a recordable CD. The do differ in some ways, amount of storage and recording speed, being the main differences.

However, so far, I have seen ‘MP3 CD-Rs’, ‘Music CD-R’s’ and ‘Data CD-R’s’. Let me be absolutely clear on this. There is no physical difference whatsoever between these discs.

A CD-R is, basically, a thin layer of metal sandwiched between two pieces of plastic. The Metal is coated with a dye, that changes color when the ’writing’ laser in a CD-R drive hits it. One color for 1, another color for 0. All data on a CD is stored in binary as ones and zeros, it makes no difference what that data actually is.

So why are all the CD-R producers releasing recordable media that is marked as being suitable for only one particular media?

Basically, they’re trying to trick as much money out of us as possible.

You see, they’re hoping that Mr. and Mrs. New Computer User are going to get their first computer with a recordable drive and go to the local CompUSA to buy some CD-R’s.

“Look.” Mr. New Computer User would say. “They have these ones for music, and these ones for data. I want to do both!”
“Well, buy a package of each, then.” Replies Mrs. New Computer User.

Logical, right? If you’re new to computers, it’s not such a big stretch to think that Music CD’s and Data CD’s are ‘different’. After all, you can’t connect your Audio CD player to your computer and install software with it, and if you put a Data CD into an Audio CD player, you get that horrible screeching noise.

Then they leave the store, with an extra package or two of discs that they simply don’t need.

It’s nothing but a blatant attempt to confuse and trick more money out of people.

…and you know what? I’m not sure I want to buy anything from a company that’s blatantly trying to screw me over.