The conclusion that we will abandon Spotify for individual artist discords is nonsense. Clearly Spotify should be enabling all of the community building and merchandising that artists want to do because that would help their margins and moat. But regardless of whether they do or do not, the vast bulk of the demand side, the listeners, are going to want à la cart unrestricted music. It’s the same thing we want for video, we are just not given it. Perhaps they should balkanize into fifteen different streaming services each with its own catalog and exclusives but that way lies the return of piracy.

Would be great if a non-Amazon / non-Apple service popped up that allows for buying mp3; one that allowed for re-downloading, so kept your “library” safe but not hostage.

I miss last.fm

I was able to transition to bandcamp surprisingly easily minus one band I like.

At this point, either I pay Spotify to stream virtually all the music ever released, or I start pirating mp3s again.

I’m glad the record companies lost their hold on music distribution. They could’ve banded together and made their own streaming service, but they didn’t because of greed.