[dingleberry420]

It's insane, really. Many of my friends have no idea what to do when I send them an .mp3 or an .mp4 file if it doesn't instantly embed as a media player in their chat application of choice. For them, the only way to share images or videos is by uploading it to a commercial, ad-infested, sharing site.

By catering to the lowest common denominator we are creating a tech-illiterate society. This is on all of us who dumb down our features to make sure the users can understand.

[Robotbeat]

Dumbing down or intentionally making it hard.

Apple is intentionally hostile to sharing files and makes it very hard. Improved slightly in recent IOS versions, but still super hard. You can’t just email yourself mp3s and Play them like normal music on your phone, you have to use a third party app or a PC or something to transfer them to iTunes.

[Arrath]

Which is endlessly infuriating to me. Whether its dumbing down or making it hard, the decrease in usability is a consistent hinderance.

[nunez]

_RapidGator, MegaUpload, and Mediafire angrily enter the chat_

in all seriousness, there really are very few reasons for sharing audio files these days. The only ones I can think of are:

- finding a work that is not online (like a specific live record or like 85% of early 80s hardcore that hasn't been remastered),

- pirating (which music streaming services has made ubiquitous for 99.95% of people who consume music; thanks, Sean Parker!), or

- audiophiles buying $10,000 balanced headphone cables with gold TRS jacks (because mics don't belong in headphones, _obviously_)who only listen to test tracks in FLAC format (who don't have newer iPhones anyway)

as far as i remember, iPhones were able to play loose audio files, but you couldn't catalogue them into iTunes, which was annoying given that iPhoneOS (only 2010's kids remember this) didn't have a built-in file manager. moreover, most of those files came compressed (_Mediafire's anger intensifies_), and iPhones didn't have a publically-usable extraction utility, which made working with them a huge chore.

I think the MP3 player in its earliest form was a concession that we lived with (because it was easier than dealing with jackets of CDs and anti-skip sucking) that was absolutely destined for a streaming-only world (because my gut says that MOST people never wanted to get into the audio collection business; they only want to listen to their favorite songs from their glory days in college)