Ditto re spotify, deezer and last.fm for us Yurpeans!
thirded, together with changing form cigarettes to filter cigarillos these sites have helped me really much in cutting back my every day expenses without losing much comfort if any... (actually i am still amazed i have so much music so easily available, some days i must admit i just play 30 seconds of one album then go on to the next... but i am learning more discipline :-) )
i know spotify and deezer aren't, is last.fm available in the US? concerning web design (notably the playback function) and unavailability of listed stuff this is by far the worst of these sites but it has lots of things in its catalogue which the other sites don't have...
read somewhere that these sites are just a way for the music industry to press money out of venture capital funds and that these sites can never be profitable... don't really care, happy as long as they're around...
Now Playing: Ronnie Boykins - The Will Come, Is Now (lastfm)
great one!
I find you go through phases with these free music sites. At first I was drunk on access to so much unheard music and went through about 120 full albums, as well as "peeking" at things for a couple of minutes, as you mention, Niko. (This, by the way, led to warning emails from British Telecom about excessive broadband use and threat of surcharge. No such thing as a free lunch, as they say!) I kept lists, starring really good discs, which I'm now gradually rehearing and buying at the rate of about one a week. So I can hold my head up high, as far as the effect of free sites on the record industry is concerned!
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Brookmeyer/Terry/Lewis, Live at the Village Vanguard (Spotify)