Purposely Obscure File Types

Yes, long title. But don't worry, it gets good.

So, I store my music on iTunes, and own an iPod. Now, iTunes and iPods are great stuff, don't get me wrong, but do Microsoft and Apple have to be such enemies that iTunes protects their files? So, I have to make a video for my little brother's Bar Mitzvah. Since I'm on Windows, I don't have iMovie, so I use Windows Movie Maker. The video was very complete, except for the music. I added a few music for the games I own, which sounded good, but then I realized I need an actual lyrical song. So, I went to iTunes. I dragged one of the files onto the desktop, and was about to drag it into my video. I notice it has a weird file extension, like .m4p or something like that. Hell, Movie Maker can read anything, I thought. So, I drag it in. Nothing happens. I right-clicked Properties, and found out that the file was fully a Multi-Layered MPG4 Protected Audio File. I knew I wasn't getting through anything with a name that long. 1 hour of searching about how to get around the problem later, I found a neat little program, J-Hymn, that can convert the files.

But, why was that hour of searching neccessary? Why? As I said before, those comment spammers have added up to waste minutes of my life. But this is hours. Just a little rivalry has probably caused me, and others, to lose days of our lives just because one file can't be placed in the program of another. Yes, competition may be fine but not at this level. Windows - and especially Apple - has their products aimed for customer easiness. They want their customers to be happy! Yay!

...

Wrong. They want to make a few more dollars.