(idm) Trading philosophies for MP3s (again)?

From Brian
Sent Mon, Apr 6th 1998, 02:30

OK, first off - pardon my naivete, rambling, and possible off-topicness,
but I've been thinking about my trying to find V/Vm, Skam, and MASK MP3s. 

I'm not a trainspotter (like *most* of y'all here), so I don't have tons
of oddities and rarities to trade.  I'm interested in a few
artists/labels, but don't have the time or resources to track down all the
hard-to-find stuff.  I hopped onto the Skam, V/Vm, etc. bandwagon after
all of the copies are gone.  I don't want to (and can't) pay upwards of
$200 for a piece of music, but I'd gladly pay the regular price for any of
the old Skams, V/Vms, and MASKs if they were reissued or extra copies were
found (OK, *highly* unlikely, but you get my point - I'd gladly *buy* them
even if I had MP3s of them).

I don't have the time (or resources) to make any MP3s (and most everybody
has the tracks that I've got anyway), I don't have a CD-R burner, but I
will have a MiniDisc player soon, so I can trade MDs (but this is a format
that not many people have).

So to kinda sum up what I'm rambling about - how can a person with not
much to barter with start trading with other people?  I can pay money (but
that's not really the spirit of the thing and I understand all the
ramifications of that, so no lengthy diatribes about *that*, please), I
can send blank tapes, CD-Rs, MiniDiscs, etc., I might eventually be able
to trade some MP3s when I get some more time, etc. (but like I said, I
don't have that much rare stuff, so everybody's prob'ly already got the
stuff I've got anyway) ...

What I'm saying, I guess, is that the traditional trading for blanks ('cos
everybody could always use more blank tapes when tape trading was the
norm) is not the currency used anymore as entry-level trading - what *can*
be used as the currency for an entry level trader in the age of MP3s?

I did go back thru the archives (back to 9701) and didn't find a lot of
helpful info, but I'm gonna have to check out this Hotline idm server
thing in more detail (if it's still up/running/available).

Apologies for rambling, etc.

cya
brian
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"The most dementing of all modern sins: the inability to
distinguish excellence from success." - David Hare