Piped Music Pooling

I find piped music played over the PA at my local supermarket depressing. There's only so much easy listening adult contemporary I can take.

So I propose that supermarkets extend the network they use for their on-the-floor handheld computers to customers with specially modified personal music devices. Customers can upload a song or list of songs in MP3 format or whatever happens to be the flavour then, the music is pooled and played at random while those customers are in the store.

OK, so the idea is a little redundant. Why not just listen to your own MP3 player over the store music and shut out the rest of the world. Well, here are some advantages of pooled music:

1- notices by staff such as "XYZ-123, you left your car lights on", and can be heard.

2- presumably a more diverse range of music. This is because of the larger group of people taking their music to the market.

3- up-to-the-minute demographic pandering... People who like the same types of music seem to be largely grouped together for socioeconomic reasons. They would presumably all choose music from a similar style or genre, and that would be the music which is predominantly played.

4- self-serving bias... I once watched a problem gambler fritter away $600 on a poker machine. He asked me if I could spare a buck or two because he beleived the next hit would redeem his lost fortune. I beleive this logic would not be lost on shoppers who, while they dont like the other shoppers' choosing to pool Celine Dion into the mix, beleive that their Asian Dub Foundation mix will be next and shop with a giddy sense of excitement waiting for their song to be played.

5- you can have conversations with people with the pooled music in the background.... If you simply donned headphones and listened to your own music, this would be difficult barring some kind of sign language.