The Zune line of MP3 players from Microsoft have been the subject of cruel jokes in the past, and many of these taunts came from Apple as the company compared it to its own iPod products. The Zune was mocked for its shape, its size, its color, its music library, everything you can possible think of. Although it did have fans, one of which wrote a strongly worded rant last year titled “LOL You Have A Zune”.
“No, I am not about to make fun of the Microsoft Zune” starts the piece by Slapbracelet, “I’m about to make fun of you guys for making fun of the Zune”. The rant goes on to criticize how the iPod won the portable MP3 war based on its “coolness” rather than its features, in which the Zune had the upper hand.
“When people called me a f*cktard for owning a Zune, I’d point out that I can pay $10 a month and legally put on it an unlimited amount of whatever sh*tty music I wanted to. And they’d point out that I’m a weeny, and that I have a Zune, and also that I’m a weeny for having a Zune.”
Back in the days when the Motorola Razr was all the rave, and the thought of having a single gigabyte fit in one’s pocket without “looking like you had a box of cereal in your pants” was mind-blowing, the Zune came along with 30, then 80GB of storage that could be filled to the brim with a $15 monthly unlimited subscription to the Zune Marketplace. All this awesomeness and still the iPod, which made people pay for each song they downloaded, was considered to be “cooler”.
The author turns the attention to Spotify and how popular of a music service it is today, but that the Zune offered the same functionality years earlier, suggesting that the reason that the Zune failed was simply because it was too ahead of its time.
“Spotify is very popular now. What do you get with a Premium subscription? Ad-free music on the go. What did you get with a Zune Marketplace subscription? MOTHERF*CKING AD-FREE MUSIC, ON THE GO, THE EXACT SAME F*CKING THING, EXCEPT 9 YEARS AGO.”
Even in light of how easy it was to download songs illegally back then, the Zune Marketplace was still a better option as songs were of great quality, came with all the pretty album art and metadata, and you didn’t run the risk of getting sued for millions of dollars you didn’t have. And even for people who wanted to pirate songs, it was easier to do so with a Zune than an iPod Slapbracelet claims.
“Don’t disregard sh*t because other people are too stupid to notice on their own.” says the author as the rant concludes. “Don’t hate on something just because everyone else is doing it. Don’t think you’re cool when you haven’t considered what “cool” actually is.”
Wise words of a disgruntled Zune fan right there. I highly encourage you to head over to the source link below and read the full piece, it’s worth the read.
