An article I thought may be of interest to Hoffmanites: ‘There’s endless choice, but you’re not listening’: fans quitting Spotify to save their love of music
I feel 180 degrees different from these comments. I don't stream Spotify, my platforms are Quobuz and Amazon Unlimited. What I experience is the wonder of being able to find every day at least 10 albums by artists I'm already familiar with that I've never heard of. I'm not a passive listener, I don't listen to enhance or elevate the mood I'm in. I don't use algorithmic playlists. Platforms have albums. Just like anything else you have to have an idea of what you're looking for. One thing that's new is that there's nothing to do but listen. No information to read, no graphics, no gear to tweak no records to clean. That's how the experience, as they call it, has changed. Not better or worse, definitely different. Years ago a friend looked at my library of recorded music and said if he had that much to choose from he'd never be able to decide what to listen to. My library added something like 6 zeros to it in size with streaming. I'm good with that. Not everyone will be.
As with every other thread on this subject, why does there have to be a binary either/or choice between streaming and physical media? I use both, for different reasons at different times. When I’m home, I overwhelmingly listen to vinyl and CD, but, when I’m away from home, I don’t carry my turntable with me. Also, if I read about a new artist here or in a music magazine, I’ll check them out on streaming. I don’t want to give up that convenience.
I don't blame Spotify or other streaming services for the "too many choices, can't decide" days. I had them before Spotify too.
I've used Apple Music basically since it launched. Spotify's UI is awful. But unfortunately I think "spotify" is becoming sort of like "xerox" or "kleenex" as a catch-all for music streaming in general. I listen to music while I work, at least 9 hours a day. But I try to find time (not always successfully) for proper listening. I prefer vinyl but obviously that's not realistic. I'm intrigued by the (to me) insane amount of 70's Miles Davis recordings, but no way I could afford to get them all on LP, nor am I realistically going to get through Pangea enough times to justify a modern-day LP price, so I stream it. It works for me. I do get where they're coming from...the amount of music out there is overwhelming, and I feel like people are busier and their time more occupied than ever. You couldn't pay me to go back to the days where I'd go to Tower Records just to browse the $16.99 albums I could never afford to take a risk on, but I'll easily concede that this era comes with it's own caveats.
There are some fantastic points there! I think limitations can actually be a blessing and when there is no sandbox to play in... I do stream a bit but my primary way of listening to music is my vinyl collection. Streaming can be nice for discovery but it doesn't really feel fulfilling to listen to music that way. Kind of like looking at a picture of a nice, juicy steak on a screen. It's not the same as actually eating one. And it's easy to just look at a lot of pictures of steak online, one after the other. Before long, you're bound to become somewhat desensitized to steak and start viewing it as a bit more of a commodity and not valuing it as much. When you have to find an album and purchase it, you've got a lot more invested in it, both money and time.
If too many choices make your head hurt, why not listen to terrestrial radio? I guess I know now why radio stations tightened their playlists, because some people just want to hear the same songs over and over. Or join a record club. And throw darts at the catalog because choosing is too hard. Even rampant collectors of physical media can't own every single thing, you still need to make choices there as well.
I can 100% relate to some of the ideas in this story. As a lifelong music collector, streaming services have been both a blessing and a curse. Blessing: Being able to listen to lots of things without shelling out huge sums. Curse: A practically endless selection of music with no curation beyond "you liked that thing, here are five more things you might like." My collector (and FOMO) tendencies collide with such endless selection so that I have found myself spending more time hoarding digital "albums" that I will 100% never get to listen to, while neglecting the music I have actually bought and cherish. But this is a "me" problem, not a platform problem, so my solution has been to focus more on my actual owned collection and treat my streaming services as glorified radio stations where I can find new stuff or just lean back and not worry about picking something.
Too many choices isn't an issue for me. I use streaming to check out specific things or to listen to something that I'm too lazy to go to the basement and pull of the shelf, I don't use any algorhytmic recommendations.
I have mostly done the opposite. But I've also kind of gone oldschool with cds and am listening to several at a time in a 6-disc changer so I can really get to know those albums through a lot of listens.
This isn't an article about streaming, so much as it is about certain people's mental weaknesses and poor habits. The guy who canceled streaming because he's now into buying downloads because, mentally, he's more likely to listen closer and more comprehensively when he has the whole album downloaded instead of available on a streaming service? Good god. Just listen to the whole album when you're streaming; it ain't that hard. Who ARE these people who are so mentally weak that they can't manage to listen to an entire album on a streaming platform?
Even though Spotify is there (my wife's subscription for commuting, etc.) I never use it to listen to music and I prefer YouTube for quick research/album sampling. I do use Spotify sometimes to send playlists to my kids, to help them discover things.
It should not require 'mental strength' (whatever that means) to resist the encouragement of distraction and disruption to album continuity that Spotify actively enforces. And yet...
Ditch Spotify for Apple music, sure. Apple pays more to artists, and while still a pittance, it’s not the hideous number that Spotify pays. As someone with 10k+ records, I simply don’t have room for more physical product. The 5000 CDs I used to own are ripped to .aiff and stored on multiple drives. It’s such a relief to not have an ugly shelf full of plastic. But as someone who wants to keep consuming music until my dying day, Apple music is a blessing. Lossless audio, a deep catalog, a very user friendly app… What’s not to love?
I agree, but not every streaming platform functions that way, either. For some people it seems like just the availability of choice keeps them from listening the way that they want to. I don't really have much thoughts or sympathy about people so easily manipulated. Streaming is the greatest thing that ever happened to music for a consumer. I can't imagine it being very hard to listen attentively to an entire album on a streaming platform, if that's what you actually want to do. The need to create artificial barriers for yourself in order to accomplish this is a sign of a real problem, IMO. And as others have pointed out: why does this need to be an either/or proposition?
Some other subjects on SHF that seem to be either/or: Vinyl vs digital Are you and audiophile or a music lover? Horns vs non-horns Virtuosity vs 'feel'
Commonly used term in the tech industry. No different than how FB, IG, and Twitter are considered social media platforms.
Sure. But what about the distractions and disruptions of other audio formats? BTW, completely unfamiliar with using Spotify. Still learning all the clever ways Amazon Unlimited has for keeping track of and playing the albums I listen to there. Some people need the distraction of fussing over their gear and collectibles. Some the fritterware of what's on a streaming platform. Some people just like to nitpick and fault find. I agree, it's not a sign of mental weakness but it's interesting when all you can do is listen. Nothing else to do think about or process.
The reason for quitting Spotify should be, IMO, that it’s not one of the better services available, but the idea that embracing physical media necessarily means not also keeping a streaming subscription is strange to me, unless the budget is really so tight as to only allow one or the other.
I'm one of those people! Seriously, although I obviously have listened to many full albums on streaming services, the whole idea of "well there's so much more on here and I need to discover as much of it as possible" is a very real temptation.
Correction: the most convenient thing that has happened to music consumers I don't know exactly what you mean but others here have counted the visual (ie. album covers, liner notes) among these. That, to me, is part of the art and not a distraction from it
