6 ms·

So Much Streaming Music, Just Not in One Place

54 points by hvo 11y ago

nzoschke 11y ago
The glory days of media companies are over. Record labels aren't needed to distribute music. Cable companies aren't needed to distribute shows. I have Spotify and Netflix subscriptions and that's about it. It's certainly annoying that some artists aren't on Spotify but I feel like that's not a winning strategy for them in the long term. I'm not going to have replaced cable and CDs and bootleg mp3s with juggling subscriptions to 10 different services. I'm going to be content with the content that is available. I'm totally fine not hearing the new Kanye album. I can listen to his old albums or one of the infinitely other great rap or hip hop albums on Spotify. And if I'm not listening to the new album, I'm not DJing from it, falling in love with it, and buying tickets to the world tour. I doubt he'll have any trouble selling tickets though. Netflix has it tougher with video. They don't have nearly the breadth of content to keep everyone happy in the first place, and re-watching the classics isn't as satisfying for video. So their strategy of producing originals is brilliant. I expect and hope Spotify does the same. They already have killer live Spotify sessions. And they are doing more and more to promote new artists through discovery tools. A Spotify record label could be rad. If artists don't want to play, they don't have to.
- jonnathanson 11y ago
  Spotify is hiring aggressively from record labels. Not sure if they are going after the A&R folks, though. And then there is the longstanding rumor that Jimmy Iovine creates an Apple record label. I wouldn't be surprised if this is going on right now. (No idea how Apple, Inc. deals with the Beatles' Apple Corps. in the music trademark world, though...Those two have legally tangled in the past.)
  - tw04 11y ago
    Buy them and shut them down.
Kenji 11y ago
The only reasonable way to go is buy/download music DRM-free and store high-quality files on your own HDD. I've been burnt too many times. Youtube taking down files. Grooveshark disappearing. Newgrounds outages. Never again. I like a song, I hunt it down and download it, whatever tools it takes to do so. In general I download everything I like from the internet because it's gonna disappear. When I look at my old bookmarks, like 50% are defunct now.
- drenei 11y ago
  This. I used to be a strong proponent of owning music, until rd.io. I loved rd.io, and used it as a sandbox -- If I really enjoyed an album / song / artist, then I would get the files. But, after a few years with rd.io I started to get a bit more cavalier about ensuring that I had a copy of the music. Fast-forward to the end of last year: rd.io shutdown. I've tried a few other services since, each with its own share of problems (I'm currently on Google Music). Now, anything I like, I download. With hard drive space, and backups, it seems significantly simpler to assume that any song can disappear tomorrow.* * While a service disappearing is a relatively rare event, content churn has always made missing songs a somewhat frequent event. However, for me, rd.io's shutdown emphasized the general incompatibility between the expectations I have for music, (anything I have listened to in the past, I can listen to in the present) and the realities of what a subscription service can deliver. And so, previous annoyances turned into a line in the sand.
- zdkl 11y ago
  We don't speak of grooveshark disappearing. Never. My playlists :( The next one that'll hurt is if/when soundcloud pivots a bit too far. Funny how the best platform for listening to music online without having to think about it is YT nowadays Ah I missed the good old days of caching everything locally.
- jamespo 11y ago
  If you were enjoying groovesharks services, you're unlikely to be the target audience for paying for stuff.
  - 11y ago
mathgeek 11y ago
> ... it can be frustrating for consumers that no single outlet has everything. I'm not sure there's a better example of first world problems. I know this frustration as well, but for me it's a perfect reminder that maybe the ability to stream any song at any time isn't that big of a deal in the broader picture. One could say that the issue here is really corporate control of creative properties, but I'd wager that most people would be perfectly happy with someone like Apple controlling everything if it meant they could listen to any artist at any time.
- smacktoward 11y ago
  Well, yeah, but you could say that about anything. Having a machine to toast your bread isn't that big of a deal in the broader picture either, you know? But people buy lots of toasters, which means there will be plenty of toaster-industry people worrying whether the current toaster experience is optimal.
- branchless 11y ago
  Nope. Prices would be dictated by them. Also I'm not convinced by this steady stream of "first world problem" laments. It's like your uncle saying "you're lucky you don't live in Africa" when you're a kid. Even if you got your hand cut off he'd pipe up "I saw a kid with no arms - happy as could be, quit your moaning!".
- mikestew 11y ago
  I'm not sure there's a better example of first world problems. You forgot to remind us how if we're not paying, we're the product and not the customer, and something something Betteridge. Now that we've gotten the obvious out of the way, let's move on. but I'd wager that most people would be perfectly happy with someone like Apple controlling everything if it meant they could listen to any artist at any time. I don't know if I'd be happy with it, as a single controlling entity can't end well, but my streaming habits work as if that were true: Apple Music is my sole paid streaming provider (though I listen to a few sources that are donation-only). I'm not "frustrated", but I'm not going to juggle more than that. Hence, it's probably worse on the artists than the listeners. Me, if it's not on Apple Music then I probably won't ever notice the difference. The artist, however, has to make sure they have all of the services covered.
hellofunk 11y ago
How is this different than cable vs satellite television programming? I could say "So much on television, just not in one place."
- smacktoward 11y ago
  There's no such thing as a "DirecTV original program." Satellite and cable are just two ways to deliver the same bundle of programming channels.
  - tkjef 11y ago
    Actually, Directv does have the Audience network for original programming.
    - untog 11y ago
      ...and when was the last time it aired something culturally significant?
      - hellofunk 11y ago
        Now there's a pretentious remark if I've seen one. What you consider not culturally significant, someone else might consider entertaining. And entertainment value is somewhat important in the television and music industries, FYI.
        untog 11y ago
        Huh? Why are you suggesting that entertainment and cultural significance are two separate things? Entertaining things are culturally significant. Breaking Bad and Big Bang Theory are both culturally significant. My point was "when was the last time they made something that would impact on someone's overall choice of TV provider?". The lack of either Big Bang Theory or Breaking Bad might make that choice for a person.
        11y ago
peatmoss 11y ago
I went through a maddening period recently of trying to find something, anything that met the following criteria: 1. Lossless playback. I am willing to / currently pay for it. I don't care if it's a placebo--I think I can hear the difference when I'm listening through good headphones and a reasonable quality DAC. Plus, some musicians like Neil Young have made this a not-odious condition for being on a service. 2. Best effort on catalog. A huge catalog isn't actually super important for reasons stated below. Amazon's catalog is a little on the sparse side, but the others' are fine. 3. Allow personal user-uploaded tracks, and stream them back to the uploader account losslessly. This allows me to backfill the crazy and not so crazy stuff I've purchased over the years that is not on any of the streaming services. 4. Support a reasonable number of devices such that I don't have to choose between Prime Video and your streaming music service on my TV (to which my hifi equipment connects digitally). Right now I'm running Tidal (best compromise for me) sideloaded on a FireTV. Or distilled to first principles: "Allow me to enjoy the convenience of streaming music, while allowing me to access any content I wish (even if I must pay for it), at the same quality I experienced when I was 16 shopping at the local record store." Nobody does this. Google Play Music: Not lossless; doesn't support FireTV because arbitrary corporate bickering reasons. Props for self-uploaded tracks. Amazon Prime Music: Not lossless (worst encoding). Props for self-uploaded tracks. Apple Music: Not lossless; limited device support. Props for self-uploaded tracks, however the interface to self-uploaded tracks and streaming music not really well integrated on AppleTV. Spotify: Not lossless; no self-uploaded tracks. Tidal: No self-uploaded tracks. Deezer Elite: Only available in lossless on Sonos. Props for amazing catalog and self-uploaded tracks. In terms of fixing things... Amazon Prime Music could be my choice overnight by going CD quality (not like they don't have the infrastructure to do it). Their device support is surprisingly good. Their catalog isn't great, but I'm willing to buy / upload CDs that are missing--provided Amazon doesn't start shitting-up their content availability to drive CD sales. Google Play Music also not too far off mark. Fix the lossless thing, and I might be convinced to live with their Amazon bickering. I suspect Apple will launch lossless soon, but also think it will be a cold day in hell before I can use Apple Music on something like FireTV. Also, the integration of self-tracks and streamed-tracks is bad and should feel bad. Deezer Elite: OMG, don't make me buy a Sonos. I want you. Tidal: I like jazz, and your partial Pat Metheny albums and anemic Dave Holland selection kill me. But if you allowed me to upload my own, I could buy my way around your content negotiation failings.
CaptSpify 11y ago
Disclaimer: my own blog - https://blog.thekyel.com/?anchor=piracy https://blog.thekyel.com/?anchor=piracy This is really, IMO, an economic problem. I'd love us to have a system where these artists can just release their music, in the format they want, and the consumers can grab it. Unfortunately, we're still stuck in the old business mindset of selling physical CD's. And, as our economic model is based on selling a physical product, we don't really have a solid way of making sure the artist gets paid, so we jump through logic-hoops to make it happen.
selfsimilar 11y ago
What should (but will never) happen, is an agreed upon streaming API that arbitrary clients can connect to. Pay for a subscription and you can use (Amazon, iTunes, Spotify) from a single application. The only trick will be the application will no doubt need to placate rights holders that no saving of streaming-only content is going on, which will mean some kind of DRM.
- m52go 11y ago
  Ha, one can dream. I'd love to see something like this for books too.
- nickik 11y ago
  I stream my own music from Ampache, and their are many clients, but I don't know of any commercial offerings.
SixSigma 11y ago
If you like Classical, Baroque, Jazz, or a couple of others try http://stream.psychomed.gr/ http://stream.psychomed.gr/ 44khz 320kbit no ads, no talking I am just a happy listener
- tombrossman 11y ago
  This is great and it comes just as several Dutch AVRO stations discontinue streaming, so I am actively looking for replacements. AVRO streams were 256kbit, and no talking ever - perfect! You can find a decent list of streaming classical stations here, but many have occasional announcements and some do news breaks with extended talking. http://www.listenlive.eu/classical.html http://www.listenlive.eu/classical.html For the simplest and lightest-weight streaming on Linux try Radio Tray (https://bitbucket.org/carlmig/radio-tray https://bitbucket.org/carlmig/radio-tray) which might be in your repos already.
ralphc 11y ago
I have a Spotify subscription, a Spotify account in the UK I access through my VPN, and my wife has Apple Music that we share on family plan. US Spotify has most of what I listen to, UK Spotify has some guilty pleasure girl groups (Girls Aloud, The Saturdays) and Apple Music as the best selection of K-pop in the US.
- dublinben 11y ago
  Think of how many albums you could add to your permanent music collection for that $300 a year! Before you know it, you would own everything you want to listen to, and wouldn't have to keep paying a monthly fee to rent access to it.
  - paulbennett 11y ago
    About 30-50 I would guess. You can easily listen to more than that with a streaming service.
  - mathgeek 11y ago
    This only works if the albums you enjoy are a static set. New releases and discovering existing but unknown albums means you are already paying a recurring cost if you buy all of your content. The main advantage of owning over renting is that you can keep your existing collection if you stop paying.
    - dublinben 11y ago
      >The main advantage of owning over renting is that you can keep your existing collection if you stop paying. Clearly. It's not your collection if you're only renting access to it. Do you think you discover 30 albums per year worth buying and adding to your collection? I listen to a lot of music, and I certainly don't.
      - gregmac 11y ago
        > Do you think you discover 30 albums per year worth buying and adding to your collection? I listen to a lot of music, and I certainly don't. How do you discover albums/songs? I simply don't have the time I used to to spend "discovering" music. I used spend a lot of time combing through DJ record pools (a habit I got from DJing many years ago when I subscribed to some) and using that to find stuff I'd like, in addition to terrestrial radio, going to clubs/bars, finding stuff on YouTube, and just randomly hearing music "in the wild". I've been doing streaming services for the past few years now (one at time, but I've done several). Most of the streaming services make it easy to customize playlists, or turn a playlist into a "radio" station that plays similar songs (but that's still customizable), and I've found this is an awesome way for me to discover music. I've found a ton of stuff that I otherwise wouldn't have known about (and I think I spend less time per new song/album/artist I find and like vs what I used to spend listening to record pools). I started using some of the free (versions of) services, then switched to paid to get unlimited skips and offline support for my phone. I also used to spend a lot of time copying music around and keeping it refreshed: SD card for my car, MP3s on my laptop/iPod to bring to work or travelling, and main collection on my server for the living room HTPC or my personal PC. All of that is obsolete, I just stream everything and with zero effort, have the same playlists everywhere. I use my phone + bluetooth in my car. I do have some stuff downloaded (and auto-refreshing) on my phone for travelling, but I stopped worrying about it because I'm generally way under my data cap while streaming (no doubt thanks to caching). For the past year and a half, I've been using Google Play Music. Killer feature there is I can 'upload' any song/album I already own and it's seamlessly integrated into the service -- which means I can listen on any device, and some songs even show up on other radio stations I've created. I'm not totally okay with not 'owning' the stuff, but I feel I am getting decent value for what I pay, and that includes my ability to just listen to music. If the service I use shuts down or changes significantly, I'll reconsider my relationship with the music industry at that point.
ewzimm 11y ago
Am I the only one that sees this as a good thing? The only real holdouts are some of the top selling artists, the ones who, in my opinion, already get way too much attention. If a few people end up trying something new because they can't immediately stream the latest Kanye or Taylor Swift, I think the world will be a better place for it.
- FilterSweep 11y ago
  You aren't, just understand the medium through which NYTimes expresses its viewpoint favors a "Centralized" model of everything.
vr3690 11y ago
Most audio streaming apps have terrible UI across platforms. Spotify and Saavn are the only ones that are satisfactory and useful and I end up sticking with those. I am ready to not listen to artists I like if they're going to make me jump through hoops and cause frustration just to listen to them.
fucking_tragedy 11y ago
If a consumer is paying fees to multiple companies, then the rights holders can collect more in royalties and licensing agreements than if they were dealing with one entity.

54 points by hvo 11y ago

The glory days of media companies are over. Record labels aren't needed to distribute music. Cable companies aren't needed to distribute shows. I have Spotify and Netflix subscriptions and that's about it. It's certainly annoying that some artists aren't on Spotify but I feel like that's not a winning strategy for them in the long term. I'm not going to have replaced cable and CDs and bootleg mp3s with juggling subscriptions to 10 different services. I'm going to be content with the content that is available. I'm totally fine not hearing the new Kanye album. I can listen to his old albums or one of the infinitely other great rap or hip hop albums on Spotify. And if I'm not listening to the new album, I'm not DJing from it, falling in love with it, and buying tickets to the world tour. I doubt he'll have any trouble selling tickets though. Netflix has it tougher with video. They don't have nearly the breadth of content to keep everyone happy in the first place, and re-watching the classics isn't as satisfying for video. So their strategy of producing originals is brilliant. I expect and hope Spotify does the same. They already have killer live Spotify sessions. And they are doing more and more to promote new artists through discovery tools. A Spotify record label could be rad. If artists don't want to play, they don't have to.

jonnathanson 11y ago
Spotify is hiring aggressively from record labels. Not sure if they are going after the A&R folks, though. And then there is the longstanding rumor that Jimmy Iovine creates an Apple record label. I wouldn't be surprised if this is going on right now. (No idea how Apple, Inc. deals with the Beatles' Apple Corps. in the music trademark world, though...Those two have legally tangled in the past.)
- tw04 11y ago
  Buy them and shut them down.

Kenji 11y ago

The only reasonable way to go is buy/download music DRM-free and store high-quality files on your own HDD. I've been burnt too many times. Youtube taking down files. Grooveshark disappearing. Newgrounds outages. Never again. I like a song, I hunt it down and download it, whatever tools it takes to do so. In general I download everything I like from the internet because it's gonna disappear. When I look at my old bookmarks, like 50% are defunct now.

drenei 11y ago
This. I used to be a strong proponent of owning music, until rd.io. I loved rd.io, and used it as a sandbox -- If I really enjoyed an album / song / artist, then I would get the files. But, after a few years with rd.io I started to get a bit more cavalier about ensuring that I had a copy of the music. Fast-forward to the end of last year: rd.io shutdown. I've tried a few other services since, each with its own share of problems (I'm currently on Google Music). Now, anything I like, I download. With hard drive space, and backups, it seems significantly simpler to assume that any song can disappear tomorrow.* * While a service disappearing is a relatively rare event, content churn has always made missing songs a somewhat frequent event. However, for me, rd.io's shutdown emphasized the general incompatibility between the expectations I have for music, (anything I have listened to in the past, I can listen to in the present) and the realities of what a subscription service can deliver. And so, previous annoyances turned into a line in the sand.
zdkl 11y ago
We don't speak of grooveshark disappearing. Never. My playlists :( The next one that'll hurt is if/when soundcloud pivots a bit too far. Funny how the best platform for listening to music online without having to think about it is YT nowadays Ah I missed the good old days of caching everything locally.
jamespo 11y ago
If you were enjoying groovesharks services, you're unlikely to be the target audience for paying for stuff.
- 11y ago

mathgeek 11y ago

> ... it can be frustrating for consumers that no single outlet has everything. I'm not sure there's a better example of first world problems. I know this frustration as well, but for me it's a perfect reminder that maybe the ability to stream any song at any time isn't that big of a deal in the broader picture. One could say that the issue here is really corporate control of creative properties, but I'd wager that most people would be perfectly happy with someone like Apple controlling everything if it meant they could listen to any artist at any time.

smacktoward 11y ago
Well, yeah, but you could say that about anything. Having a machine to toast your bread isn't that big of a deal in the broader picture either, you know? But people buy lots of toasters, which means there will be plenty of toaster-industry people worrying whether the current toaster experience is optimal.
branchless 11y ago
Nope. Prices would be dictated by them. Also I'm not convinced by this steady stream of "first world problem" laments. It's like your uncle saying "you're lucky you don't live in Africa" when you're a kid. Even if you got your hand cut off he'd pipe up "I saw a kid with no arms - happy as could be, quit your moaning!".
mikestew 11y ago
I'm not sure there's a better example of first world problems. You forgot to remind us how if we're not paying, we're the product and not the customer, and something something Betteridge. Now that we've gotten the obvious out of the way, let's move on. but I'd wager that most people would be perfectly happy with someone like Apple controlling everything if it meant they could listen to any artist at any time. I don't know if I'd be happy with it, as a single controlling entity can't end well, but my streaming habits work as if that were true: Apple Music is my sole paid streaming provider (though I listen to a few sources that are donation-only). I'm not "frustrated", but I'm not going to juggle more than that. Hence, it's probably worse on the artists than the listeners. Me, if it's not on Apple Music then I probably won't ever notice the difference. The artist, however, has to make sure they have all of the services covered.

hellofunk 11y ago

How is this different than cable vs satellite television programming? I could say "So much on television, just not in one place."

smacktoward 11y ago
There's no such thing as a "DirecTV original program." Satellite and cable are just two ways to deliver the same bundle of programming channels.
- tkjef 11y ago
  Actually, Directv does have the Audience network for original programming.
  - untog 11y ago
    ...and when was the last time it aired something culturally significant?
    - hellofunk 11y ago
      Now there's a pretentious remark if I've seen one. What you consider not culturally significant, someone else might consider entertaining. And entertainment value is somewhat important in the television and music industries, FYI.
      - untog 11y ago
        Huh? Why are you suggesting that entertainment and cultural significance are two separate things? Entertaining things are culturally significant. Breaking Bad and Big Bang Theory are both culturally significant. My point was "when was the last time they made something that would impact on someone's overall choice of TV provider?". The lack of either Big Bang Theory or Breaking Bad might make that choice for a person.
        11y ago

peatmoss 11y ago

I went through a maddening period recently of trying to find something, anything that met the following criteria: 1. Lossless playback. I am willing to / currently pay for it. I don't care if it's a placebo--I think I can hear the difference when I'm listening through good headphones and a reasonable quality DAC. Plus, some musicians like Neil Young have made this a not-odious condition for being on a service. 2. Best effort on catalog. A huge catalog isn't actually super important for reasons stated below. Amazon's catalog is a little on the sparse side, but the others' are fine. 3. Allow personal user-uploaded tracks, and stream them back to the uploader account losslessly. This allows me to backfill the crazy and not so crazy stuff I've purchased over the years that is not on any of the streaming services. 4. Support a reasonable number of devices such that I don't have to choose between Prime Video and your streaming music service on my TV (to which my hifi equipment connects digitally). Right now I'm running Tidal (best compromise for me) sideloaded on a FireTV. Or distilled to first principles: "Allow me to enjoy the convenience of streaming music, while allowing me to access any content I wish (even if I must pay for it), at the same quality I experienced when I was 16 shopping at the local record store." Nobody does this. Google Play Music: Not lossless; doesn't support FireTV because arbitrary corporate bickering reasons. Props for self-uploaded tracks. Amazon Prime Music: Not lossless (worst encoding). Props for self-uploaded tracks. Apple Music: Not lossless; limited device support. Props for self-uploaded tracks, however the interface to self-uploaded tracks and streaming music not really well integrated on AppleTV. Spotify: Not lossless; no self-uploaded tracks. Tidal: No self-uploaded tracks. Deezer Elite: Only available in lossless on Sonos. Props for amazing catalog and self-uploaded tracks. In terms of fixing things... Amazon Prime Music could be my choice overnight by going CD quality (not like they don't have the infrastructure to do it). Their device support is surprisingly good. Their catalog isn't great, but I'm willing to buy / upload CDs that are missing--provided Amazon doesn't start shitting-up their content availability to drive CD sales. Google Play Music also not too far off mark. Fix the lossless thing, and I might be convinced to live with their Amazon bickering. I suspect Apple will launch lossless soon, but also think it will be a cold day in hell before I can use Apple Music on something like FireTV. Also, the integration of self-tracks and streamed-tracks is bad and should feel bad. Deezer Elite: OMG, don't make me buy a Sonos. I want you. Tidal: I like jazz, and your partial Pat Metheny albums and anemic Dave Holland selection kill me. But if you allowed me to upload my own, I could buy my way around your content negotiation failings.

CaptSpify 11y ago

Disclaimer: my own blog - https://blog.thekyel.com/?anchor=piracy https://blog.thekyel.com/?anchor=piracy This is really, IMO, an economic problem. I'd love us to have a system where these artists can just release their music, in the format they want, and the consumers can grab it. Unfortunately, we're still stuck in the old business mindset of selling physical CD's. And, as our economic model is based on selling a physical product, we don't really have a solid way of making sure the artist gets paid, so we jump through logic-hoops to make it happen.

selfsimilar 11y ago

What should (but will never) happen, is an agreed upon streaming API that arbitrary clients can connect to. Pay for a subscription and you can use (Amazon, iTunes, Spotify) from a single application. The only trick will be the application will no doubt need to placate rights holders that no saving of streaming-only content is going on, which will mean some kind of DRM.

m52go 11y ago
Ha, one can dream. I'd love to see something like this for books too.
nickik 11y ago
I stream my own music from Ampache, and their are many clients, but I don't know of any commercial offerings.

SixSigma 11y ago

If you like Classical, Baroque, Jazz, or a couple of others try http://stream.psychomed.gr/ http://stream.psychomed.gr/ 44khz 320kbit no ads, no talking I am just a happy listener

tombrossman 11y ago
This is great and it comes just as several Dutch AVRO stations discontinue streaming, so I am actively looking for replacements. AVRO streams were 256kbit, and no talking ever - perfect! You can find a decent list of streaming classical stations here, but many have occasional announcements and some do news breaks with extended talking. http://www.listenlive.eu/classical.html http://www.listenlive.eu/classical.html For the simplest and lightest-weight streaming on Linux try Radio Tray (https://bitbucket.org/carlmig/radio-tray https://bitbucket.org/carlmig/radio-tray) which might be in your repos already.

ralphc 11y ago

I have a Spotify subscription, a Spotify account in the UK I access through my VPN, and my wife has Apple Music that we share on family plan. US Spotify has most of what I listen to, UK Spotify has some guilty pleasure girl groups (Girls Aloud, The Saturdays) and Apple Music as the best selection of K-pop in the US.

dublinben 11y ago
Think of how many albums you could add to your permanent music collection for that $300 a year! Before you know it, you would own everything you want to listen to, and wouldn't have to keep paying a monthly fee to rent access to it.
- paulbennett 11y ago
  About 30-50 I would guess. You can easily listen to more than that with a streaming service.
- mathgeek 11y ago
  This only works if the albums you enjoy are a static set. New releases and discovering existing but unknown albums means you are already paying a recurring cost if you buy all of your content. The main advantage of owning over renting is that you can keep your existing collection if you stop paying.
  - dublinben 11y ago
    >The main advantage of owning over renting is that you can keep your existing collection if you stop paying. Clearly. It's not your collection if you're only renting access to it. Do you think you discover 30 albums per year worth buying and adding to your collection? I listen to a lot of music, and I certainly don't.
    - gregmac 11y ago
      > Do you think you discover 30 albums per year worth buying and adding to your collection? I listen to a lot of music, and I certainly don't. How do you discover albums/songs? I simply don't have the time I used to to spend "discovering" music. I used spend a lot of time combing through DJ record pools (a habit I got from DJing many years ago when I subscribed to some) and using that to find stuff I'd like, in addition to terrestrial radio, going to clubs/bars, finding stuff on YouTube, and just randomly hearing music "in the wild". I've been doing streaming services for the past few years now (one at time, but I've done several). Most of the streaming services make it easy to customize playlists, or turn a playlist into a "radio" station that plays similar songs (but that's still customizable), and I've found this is an awesome way for me to discover music. I've found a ton of stuff that I otherwise wouldn't have known about (and I think I spend less time per new song/album/artist I find and like vs what I used to spend listening to record pools). I started using some of the free (versions of) services, then switched to paid to get unlimited skips and offline support for my phone. I also used to spend a lot of time copying music around and keeping it refreshed: SD card for my car, MP3s on my laptop/iPod to bring to work or travelling, and main collection on my server for the living room HTPC or my personal PC. All of that is obsolete, I just stream everything and with zero effort, have the same playlists everywhere. I use my phone + bluetooth in my car. I do have some stuff downloaded (and auto-refreshing) on my phone for travelling, but I stopped worrying about it because I'm generally way under my data cap while streaming (no doubt thanks to caching). For the past year and a half, I've been using Google Play Music. Killer feature there is I can 'upload' any song/album I already own and it's seamlessly integrated into the service -- which means I can listen on any device, and some songs even show up on other radio stations I've created. I'm not totally okay with not 'owning' the stuff, but I feel I am getting decent value for what I pay, and that includes my ability to just listen to music. If the service I use shuts down or changes significantly, I'll reconsider my relationship with the music industry at that point.

ewzimm 11y ago

Am I the only one that sees this as a good thing? The only real holdouts are some of the top selling artists, the ones who, in my opinion, already get way too much attention. If a few people end up trying something new because they can't immediately stream the latest Kanye or Taylor Swift, I think the world will be a better place for it.

FilterSweep 11y ago
You aren't, just understand the medium through which NYTimes expresses its viewpoint favors a "Centralized" model of everything.

vr3690 11y ago

Most audio streaming apps have terrible UI across platforms. Spotify and Saavn are the only ones that are satisfactory and useful and I end up sticking with those. I am ready to not listen to artists I like if they're going to make me jump through hoops and cause frustration just to listen to them.

fucking_tragedy 11y ago

If a consumer is paying fees to multiple companies, then the rights holders can collect more in royalties and licensing agreements than if they were dealing with one entity.