What All the MP3s in the World Would Cost: A Thought Experiment

The limitations of this thought experiment are three-fold: Money, storage and time. For example, the average mp3 is only a few megabytes of information. However, the best price for an mp3 currently is 99 cents, with itunes.

The final limitation is time. Each download of an mp3 takes a moment of time, even with the fastest computer and processor.

However, despite these limitations, it should be possible, although impractical, to own every single mp3 in the world. Let's discuss.

Q: How many songs (ever) are on mp3?
A: I don't know, but the itunes store has 5 million songs. Let's work with that.

Q: How much room would it take?
A: 5 million songs x .004 GB per song (see math below) = 20 TB of storage

(According to apple.com, an 80 GB ipod can hold 20,000 songs at 4 min/song and 128khz-AAC. 80 GB/20,000 songs = 0.004 GB per song)

Q: How expensive is it to purchase 20 Tera-bytes of storage?
A: A Lacie External 2 TB Hard drive costs $641 on newegg.com. $641 x 10 = $6,410 + shipping and taxes. (Assuming that a 2 tera-byte Hard drive would hold 500,000 songs, approximately.)

COSTS:

$5,000,000 and taxes (purchased legally on the itunes store)
$6,410 + shipping and taxes
-
$5,006,410

TIME:

2 TB / 450 kb/sec T1 LAN = 4,444,444.44 seconds

4,444,444 sec / 60 sec/min / 60 min/hour / 24 hours/day = 51.44 days

That's almost TWO MONTHS dedicated ONLY to downloading songs. That's an incredible amount of bandwidth dedicated solely to owning mp3's!

Ironically, the storage of all the mp3's in the world is the most affordable part! $6,410 is within most people's credit limits; it is the price of a used car or a downpayment on a house.

However, in the end, owning all the mp3s in the world does not guarantee that you will enjoy the music. Most music can be annoying, if not downright un-listenable. Not to mention the countless amount of radio-edits and remixes.

Who wants to own 2,000,000 songs that you can actually listen to, and 3,000,000 songs that are complete and utter crap?

(Footnote: It would take approximately 28.6 years to listen to 3,000,000 songs without stopping. Also, consider the other factors involved: cost of electricity, amount of time spent downloading, internet fees for downloading 3,000,000 songs, bank fees, and any other fees associated with upkeep. Maybe it would be cheaper to subscribe to a subscription-based service.)