[frogstomp19]

I feel like we've lost essentially nothing. In the streaming era, it's easier than ever before to discover new artists and listen to an unprecedented variety of music with minimal investment. If it's slightly cumbersome to listen to albums on Spotify, it's still much less cumbersome that going to a store to buy a CD or purchasing online and waiting for it to arrive + keeping your collection physically organized and in good condition. I don't absolutely love Spotify but I'm not going back to a CD collection.

[javajosh]

>I feel like we've lost essentially nothing.

We've lost: cover art, liner notes, the ability to share or sell your music without 3rd party permission, music stores, and in many cases local music scenes that formed around music stores. Bret Victor has been harping on this for years, but we've also lost a great deal of tactility - putting a CD in a player and pressing buttons to play it uses your hands in pleasant ways that screens just aren't.

As for discovery, the promise is greater than reality. I used Spotify for a while specifically for this purpose, but I didn't discover a single new artist through it. YouTube, by contrast, has introduced me to new artists, as have a few radio stations like KCRW and KQED (who both have excellent YT channels too). And you know what? Music discovery is a different mode of listening than enjoying my library and ne'er the twain shall meet, IMHO.

[so_dewy]

>We've lost: cover art

Spotify does have cover art for albums, at least for me it does.

> Music discovery is a different mode of listening

For me it really is the same mode. I regularly discover new artists when my handcrafted playlists finish playing and it starts to play music based on the playlist I just listened to

[mariusor]

> Spotify does have cover art for albums, at least for me it does.

I think parent means something like this: https://www.encartespop.com.br/2012/09/encarte-pink-floyd-da...

The vinyl and especially CD covers were sometimes a little more than just barren images.

[TedDoesntTalk]

> I didn't discover a single new artist through it.

That's surprising. I've never used Spotify for this, but 10+ years ago used Pandora for that purpose. I was overjoyed with the new artists I learned about.

[Godel_unicode]

It’s not surprising to me that someone who very clearly hates Spotify for ideological reasons doesn’t have a good experience when using it.

Spotify is amazing for discovery, they’re holding it wrong.

[javajosh]

someone who very clearly hates Spotify for ideological reasons

Why would you say that? It's a pretty harsh dig, and it's not justified. I tried Spotify and didn't like it. I never said I hated it. I don't like it because I weight its trade-offs differently than you. I mean, have YOU tried the alternative I've suggested? If not, is it because of your ideology?

[throwaway675309]

Let's cover each one of these in turn:

1. Cover art / liner notes - any given digital album can include links to these notes or even a website with the cover art, and if you're referring to the physical component I would argue that's just less trash that comes with the predominant reason for me purchasing music... which is the music.

2. Ability to share music - I frequently share music from Spotify all the time, either using the Spotify link and sending it to my friends over Chat, or even just telling them the name of it and they can frequently find the exact song on YouTube.

3. Ability to sell music - since I'm not really purchasing the music on Spotify I don't feel like this is a fair argument

4. Music stores - i'll give you this one though for a lot of us we simply don't have the free time to physically browse for music in a brick and mortar store.

5. Discovery - anecdotal of course but I've had the exact opposite experience, the Discover weekly list that Spotify provides invariably introduces me to new artists that I would've otherwise never even heard of, and if I like a song I can look for playlists curated by users that contain that song, which is an additional avenue of discovery.

[vinceguidry]

Man I used to put CDs in players all day long, I don't miss it a single bit. I was one of the first MP3 player adopters and never looked back. I also used tapes. Was happy to ditch those for CDs too. Never used vinyl though. Maybe I would have liked that more than tapes and CDs. Seems plausible enough, but then again maybe not.

[dendriti]

As someone with mobility impairment, putting a CD in a player and pressing buttons to play was never pleasant. In fact I was often stuck with whatever five CDs were left in the player. CDs actually haven't gone away, and you can still use them today. I am glad the world has moved on though.

[ikr678]

Also, no children scratching your cd's, or loaning out physical media to friends and never getting it back.

[mongol]

Many people bring up the "discover new music" argument. It is probably subjective, but for me this has never been an issue. There are so many way to discover new music today, there are tons on youtube and people recommend in the comments, you see a mention of something and head over to Wikipedia, follow some links, and so on. I don't need an algorithm for it, an algorithm that most likely is more optimized for revenue than anything else.

[ryandrake]

Streaming has sacrificed so much at the altar of "discovery". Sometimes you want discovery and sometimes you don't. More and more, I'm finding I don't care about discovery and just want to listen to my music. If it's a choice between my old late-2000s era iPod loaded with my carefully curated list of albums and streaming services which are optimized for "discovery" and "engagement" and require the network to be online, I pick the iPod any day of the week.

Other people like streaming, and want The Algorithm to feed them discovery, and that's fine--it's just not for me.

[anticristi]

> an algorithm that most likely is more optimized for revenue than anything else.

Yup, that is the core issue. We have all this great tech, but then deploy it against ourselves. The peak is when FB optimized for polarized (ahem fake) content, because that is what drives "engagement".

I'm not sure what is the solution here. Regulations around more algorithmic transparency? "Low tech" alternatives? User education?

[the_only_law]

> there are tons on youtube and people recommend in the comments

I mean if Spotify UX is bad, YouTube is absolutely trash. I have to pay to be able to stream media if my phone is locked.

[mongol]

There are apps that work around this. I use NewPipe. No matter how bad the Youtube app is there is plenty of music to find there

[javajosh]

I almost always listen to YT on my desktop, connected to the stereo. And on Firefox with extensions to help with the rest.

[reaperducer]

it's easier than ever before to discover new artists

Not really.

It's easier than ever to be exposed to a select group of pre-selected songs by a small subset of artists churned out by a computer program for the purpose of getting you to continue your subscription. That's not discovery.

Go into any real music store, like Louisiana Music Factory in New Orleans, Amoeba Music in Los Angeles, or Electric Fetus in Minneapolis, and you'll find thousands of albums and artists that are not on streaming, never have been on streaming, and never will be on streaming.

The tech companies have made people believe that they're seeing everything, but they're not. They're just looking through a keyhole into the world of music.

For example, Apple boasts something like 90 million songs on Apple Music. The reality check is that's probably less than 1% of the world's recorded music.

People on HN rail against "walled gardens" in app stores, and then wall themselves into one streaming service or the other because they bought the infinite music hype, and don't even know it.

[throwaway675309]

I'm not sure I understand what your point is, that since digital discovery doesn't provide every single artist in perpetuity throughout the universe that it is somehow not useful as an avenue of discovery?

I can spin this argument directly around and guarantee that if you go to the Louisiana music factory in New Orleans, that for every artist and album they know about, there are 1000 international or country specific artists that are available only online to listeners in America via online channels.

[HeadsUpHigh]

My results from discovering new artists have been far superior on community oriented places vs spotify or any streaming service. Algos just suck at this.

[frogstomp19]

I'm not really arguing that Spotify has the greatest music discover system but if you read about an album, it costs you nothing to try it out. Prior to subscription services and digital music it would be a 10$ investment that you may or may not make.

[watwut]

It is not actually easier. It is theoretically more available. Practically, current tech is designed to keep you in one bubble and makes it harder to step put of it.