Boing Boing links to a Washington Post review of Napster to Go. Let’s just say WaPo found it… wanting. Napster’s PR firm has been running full steam lately with numerous mentions in the press (after their post-Super Bowl Ad) where they’re trying to show the math hat an iPod with 10,000 songs = $10,000 or Napster can get you the same thing for $15 / month. That is, $15 / month for forever. Because once you stop paying your songs go poof.

Now I have a friend, who shall remain nameless, that loves Napster for their streaming service. He’s had various MP3 players over the years, but they were clunky, so he bought an iPod mini mid-last year. Loved the Apple experience when it came to digital music – he’s fairly technical but Apple made it easy to get and transfer music. Yet he comes back to Napster to use their radio stations. For $10 bucks a month (or whatever it is, somewhere in that ballpark) you can listen to any song Napster has. You want to burn it? Just like iTunes, that’s 99 cents please. So Napster to Go will be the premium version of their monthly fee based service.

I can see both sides – if you have a Microsoft powered (codename Janus) player, or in Microsoft marketing speak, Plays for Sure, Napster to Go can fill up your MP3 (or should I be saying WMA?) player until you stop paying for Napster. That’s pretty cool – I can get thousands of songs to go work out to, or listen to my car, my choice of songs, for $15 month. Compare that to Sirius or XM, and it could be a better option that satellite radio.

But on the on the other hand – DRM makes bad business sense as I’ve noted before. Think about it, as Xeni points out so eloquently on BoingBoing:

What if Napster To Go were Napster The Grocery, and milk you bought could only be consumed from proprietary square mugs (known for continually sprouting holes you have to patch on your own), and milk cartons vanish from your refrigerator shelf if you don’t re-up your subscription? You’d get milk elsewhere.

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I’ll let you figure out the allegory on your own.