That makes everybody who has a freaking web page think they have to have an online music store.

Just when I thought we were taking a break from huffing and puffing beneath Bubble 2.0 comes word that my favorite seller Amazon, after sitting idly by while the space fills up to ludicrous and unprofitable proportions, now wants to do its version of the iTunes killing online music store.

Henry Blodget did a fine job of explaining why this is another dancer in the conga line of stupid ideas, but let me pile on a little bit.

Not only are most mp3 players a commodity, but online music itself, once you recover from iTunes dementia, is a commodity. It's not like Amazon can slay the priority challenged RIAA and sell some actual music, as opposed to the right to rent some crippled and possibly spyware infested music file. To the contrary, Amazon will throw the same crap on the same wall that scads of others have already thrown. Maybe it will stick, Amazon certainly has a lock on traditional CD sales, but even if it does it still be part of a big pile of crap.

The root cause of all this stupidity, of course, is the RIAA and the greedy record labels whose only business plan seems to be to try to make us buy the same thing over and over and over. Why doesn't some big player step up and say no to all this madness? I went on record a long time ago that I will never buy a DRM infested song, and I won't.

I suppose the truth is that Amazon is trying to protect one of its primary revenue sources, the sale of music, in light of what some people are calling a migration from traditional CDs to online music.

And just to make sure it doesn't work, the Wall Street Journal says Amazon may do yet another subscription service- which is a word for a platform whereby users pay monthly to listen to the songs they should be able to buy and listen to forever, free of DRM restrictions.

The bottom line is that this is a stupid move that won't work, but since the RIAA has basically hijacked the entire online music industry, Amazon probably feels it has to do something as a defensive measure against the potential loss of revenue.

While I can see why Amazon feels it has to jump off this cliff, I continue to be amazed at the lengths some folks will go to in an effort to extract more money from consumers.

Does anyone even try to make new products that will sell themselves anymore?