Why has this thang' on subscriptions felt so important for so many ("way over the top" according to some), despite not being an issue of life and death? My suspicion, based in part on my own feelings and analysis, is that the principle dilemmas undelying these problems are, if not in analogy, nonetheless very descriptive of the current global political situation (i.e., typical) .

Last.fm could definitely do better than charge everyone the same, regardless of purchasing power, since everyone contributes equally with tagging and other "community work" such as creating fan- and group pages; e.g., the Brazilian users created several stations like the "Manguebeat", from South Africa we got "Township Jive" and "South African Jazz," and from Portugal we got "Capo Verde" and so on, not to mention all the groups. This work we all do can be seen as an analogy to the global work done, wherever work is done and whatever it is, be it tilling the soil, child-rearing, working on an assembly line, or reviewing the legal aspects of a big merger/acquisition deal for a transnational company producing shampoo or cell-phones. All work is needed to create the global wealth and growth that is currently trickling down, albeit in unequal numbers, to rich people living in the already rich parts of the world. It's just a matter of indirect or direct power, however illegitimate, who get's what portion of this accumulated labor surplus.

It is NOT EQUAL to demand that these listeners mentioned pay the same as listeners in Sweden, the U.S., Germany, or Canada, similarly as it would not be authentically equal to demand from a female sweatshop-worker in Vietnam to pay the same price for grain, salt, or milk, as stock-brokers pay on Manhattan. That is formally neutral but comes with a discriminatory impact. There is even a legal doctrine outlawing such practices in the U.S., Canada, South Africa, India, and in International Law, among other jurisdictions. This law is referred to as substance equality law, or the "disparate impact doctrine".

There might even be legal remedies against this new scheme from Last.fm, but I think it is premature to discuss such action at this moment. Indeed, this is not about life and death, but the whole fee-issue is very symptomatic for neo-liberalism which, not least in these days, finally seems to have reached a dead end.

Sincerely
DSJ