Zune Marketplace disappeared today

Count me as another customer who is really sad to see the ability to play DRMed music offline disappear.  I used my zune on the train/car/gym pretty close to everywhere I went. 

The ability to have a couple of days of use without having to worry about recharging, the ability to have whatever music I wanted --close to whenever--as long as I did a little bit of planning, the downloading and syncing of podcasts . 

I am going to miss all of that.

The Groove music player is a weak imitation at best and on my android phone, beyond buggy.  I haven't been able to play one song straight through without restarting

I understand why the device was discontinued.  I don't understand why the marketplace service was discontinued, if it was going to be replaced by the fairly crappy Groove music service.

Forget offline play on my device, I can't even browse all music (only new music or top music)--that is really lame.

They may have a deep catalog, but it is not that useful to me.   I really would like to explore a genre and stumble upon a new artist--but if I can only explore new music/top albums, I might as well listen to the radio when I get a chance--commercials and all.

I guess I'm going to have to cancel my subscription anyway.  My Zune HD was my main source of tunes in the car, and I have a Zune 120 permanently connected to my home stereo.  The DRM on the Groove downloads are not compatible with the Zune desktop software, and won't sync with either device, or even my phone.  I really have no reason to waste my money every month for files I can only play on my PC. 

My Zunes don't even show up any more in "my devices".  I guess that's the final nail in the coffin!

Groove Music should download your files to the Subscription Cache folder in your Music folder, if it's from the Pass Subscription.

So apparently you have to click on "add to collection" and have set to "automatically download added music".  Now I'll have to find out where it goes when it downloads...