Technology ever advances, keeping even those that dislike technology constantly on their toes. There are a lot of complaints about where technology is taking us and the learning curve it takes to keep up with the Joneses. But. when it comes to something as basic as the music we listen to, however, everyone keeps up; music is part of who we are and what defines us, so any advance in our music is seen as an advance in ourselves. There is nothing we won’t do to hear better music.

MP3s are the newest format; it’s essentially a way to compress music down a bit, allowing minimum size while keeping maximized quality. There are a number of advantages to MP3s, making them the favorite format of today’s audiophiles. The obvious advantage is that they can be used by a variety of different programs; this broad support allows people to share the file, and thus enjoy the same music, as well as trade it. That broad support allows them to be played in a variety of different ways and means, meaning that anyone can play them, and virtually guaranteeing that they will play for anyone regardless of which player is used. The size is another advantage. Besides being able to fit more songs on players, the file can be uploaded quickly, downloaded faster, and shared at the speed of light. The obvious issue is that regulating the trading of files becomes important, but it also becomes harder. After all, it now becomes easy to trade files, as all you need to do is to share a link to the files, and then anyone with that link can download the music. More importantly, it means that the music can downloaded for free; obviously record companies dislike that feature, but that makes it great for promotional purposes, or sharing music that was just acquired at a concert that night.