Ready, Aye, Ready

Link: http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/13/a-baffling-new-phenomenon-customized-ringtones/

I don't get it either:

Pop song ringtones from T-Mobile and Sprint cost $2.50 apiece; from Verizon, $3. You don’t get to customize them, choose the start and end points, adjust the looping and so on. Incredibly, after 90 days, every Sprint ringtone dies, and you have to pay another $2.50 if you want to keep it. Verizon’s last only a year.

Three bucks for a 30-second snippet that lasts a year—when you can buy the entire song online for $1 and own it forever?

What am I missing here? How is a 30-second, time-limited excerpt worth three times as much as the full work forever?

(Via Daring Fireball)