[barrowclift]

I think this all ties back to listening habits. I find individuals who share this opinion are typically stream-primary listeners who mostly listen to playlists, singles, and generated "radio" stations (which is entirely valid! Not to mention that's the way most people listen to music, nowadays.)

However, there are nonetheless lots of people like myself that primarily listen to albums, maintain their own digital libraries, and use streaming platforms as a glorified "trial" platform for new music. I find those who tend to listen to music like I do really care about high resolution album art (and by extension the quality and accuracy of track metadata).

Frankly, since both needs are so widely different, I'm not sure there's any one solution for both. Goodness knows Apple Music tries, but to OP's point, it's clearly not succeeding in this effort.

[fastball]

I primarily listen to albums and don't care about album artwork.

[sleepless]

Give it a try. You will find there is a lot to discover and close connection to the music. Then try looking at the booklet of an album. Pro level: read the liner notes.

It will be amazing how much information there is and to learn about the thought process of the artist while creating the album.

[photojosh]

Like this comment [0] elsewhere on this post so very well points out, everything digital is skeuomorphic....

> use streaming platforms as a glorified "trial" platform for new music

... and it seems like the skeumorphism has changed from being a digital analog of a personal record library, to being of a record store. The "library" aspect of it has become more like just the featured section of the store.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26652389