I'm with Jeri on this. I'm stuck with a dial-up connection myself as I can't get broadband despite living just outside one of the biggest cities in the country. I've been online since about 1995 and have wanted broadband since 1997.

However, this isn't about belligerence (in either my part or, I'd imagine, Jeri's) it's more about practicality and a liitle lack of consideration for others. I doubt either of us are kill-joys as we're both actually interested in music - hence us both being here and trying to look at performers' web sites!

The reason I look at artists' MySpace pages is for a variety of reasons: to see whether there's any new releases, any gigs coming up, any new photos and so on. I won't deny that music per se is the primary reason that I'm interested in seeing a performer's page (I don't think I've ever liked an artist because of the way they look in photos!) but whilst I'm on the net, I might already be listening to music (of my choice) on my computer. I think 'choice' is always important, I should have a choice as to whether I listen to music or not - even if it's a performer I like - and particularly when there's an issue about whether it cripples my browsing experience.

It's not just a case of being able to 'turn it off' either as, quite often, pages grind to a halt and hang before I get the opportunity to actually turn them off.

I'll also admit that I'll sometimes download or rip the stream from MySpace (st    r   e   am i    n       g    is    l          i      k   e       th         i    s          on    d    i    a    l       u    p). It might take me up to an hour to download a single song, but at least I get to hear it as it's meant to be heard and I get the choice about whether I want to hear it.

My partner's broadband connection can be very slow on things like YouTube - like Lizzie points out - but whilst it's irritating, it's just not as bad as what the likes of Jeri and I experience on many, many more places than just YouTube.