Opinion: "renting music" = bad idea? A closer look

If you follow the reactions to the new Napster-to-go service, you have probably heard these popular arguments against the idea of "renting music" (actually it should be called music-on-demand):

Argument #1: you lose everything once you no longer pay for subscription so this is no good compared to "buy and own your music"

Argument #2: if you have to pay to listen, why don't you get satellite radio?

Well, don't bash music-on-demand just because it is not as intuitive an idea as CD and radio. IMO this type of service is ideal for people who like to actively search for new music. The keywords are "new" and "active":

[New] I'm the type who get tired of music fairly easily (my typical listening pattern of a new CD is: once for the first week, once for the 2nd, once for another month, 5-10 more times for its "lifetime" unless it becomes an all-time favorite like "Kind of Blue." Even my all-time favorites do not get a lot of playtime for fear of getting bored. This pattern changed somewhat because of my use of shuffle on iPod/iTunes though) So $9.99/month for all-music-I-could-listen is a dream comes true for me. I would never be able to afford buying that many new CDs. And I won't hear that many new music on radio (even satellite radio) either 'coz they usually maintain playlists and are often repetitive (More of my unfavorable review of XM radio here.)

[Active] Radio advocates say radio is superior because (1) zero effort is required to listen to radio (once you've setup your radio and antenna properly) and (2) DJs would expand their horizon by introducing new artists/albums/trends to them while on-demand listeners has to pick music by themselves and keep listening to what they know and have heard before. I'd like to point out this is simply a matter of preference between being active or passive. Listeners who actively search for and listen to music from artists similar to their favorites on demand would probably listen to a higher percentage of music they like than passive radio listeners. On-demand listeners could experiment with music they haven't heard before without risking the cost of full-priced CDs and thus expand their horizon economically.
BTW, although they might not be programmed by "celebrity" DJs, Rhapsody does provide many different "radio" channels for those "passive" listeners.