| 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. |
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.