I guess that old saying, “The Best Things In Life Are Free” isn’t true anymore when it comes to Amazon.com.  If you are a loyal user of Amazon’s cloud drive/mp3 player like I am, you probably woke up to an email outlining a bunch of changes that are coming.

The good:

Amazon is offering you a free upgrade to any music it can match to 256 Kbps audio at no additional charge.  Assuming you have not already ripped your music at that quality anyway.  Which frankly, who wouldn’t?  But for all those low quality songs you might have come into contact with in less than ethical ways, not a bad way to upgrade some of them.

Music that you purchase from Amazon will still be stored free without counting against a size limit. Uploading to the cloud drive will be easier, as Amazon will now scan your computer and only upload songs it cannot match.

The Bad:

Amazon is breaking apart the cloud drive from the cloud player.  You can still back up your music to the cloud drive, but you won’t be able to play it.  You can still use Amazon’s cloud player free, but they will limit you to your favorite 250 songs.  If you want more than that, you will have to pay $25 dollars a year to be able to access up to 250,000 songs on the cloud player.

I understand that Amazon has the right to charge for the service it provides, but the free storage and streaming of what was stored made such a nice little service which made me love them so much more over iTunes.  In reality, I love having access to all my music, because I don’t know when a sudden urge to hear a certain song might come up.

Will I be paying for the ability to use the cloud player unlimited, still yet to be seen.  At this time, I am taking my vengeance and getting my 256 Kbps upgrades before I decide what to do.  Honestly, I might go to using another app all together.  The real reason I use the cloud drive through Amazon is simply a redundant backup of my music.  I can stream from my computer just as easily as I can stream from Amazon.

What are your thoughts?