as much as i miss napster/audio galaxy, i've noticed a couple interesting things have happened since the demise of file sharing:
a) more "respectable"/album oriented/alternative bands (weezer, white stripes, strokes, queens of the stone age, etc) have suddenly become popular again. were the record companies holding these guys back until the file sharing craze ended?
b) i've, ahem, found myself buying cd's more often. i picked up the new queens of the stone age and most of the album is pretty darn good. there's a bunch of tracks that require instant skipping, though. maybe in the future cd players will be able to remember those tracks we always skip on cd's so we don't have to constantly do it ourselves? yes, i'm too lazy to program the cd player, thank you.