I don't quite grok music streaming services. Sure, I understand that I get all the music IN THE WORLD!!!111 while I'm current, which is impressive, but that only works if I accept that I'd get tired of $7-10 of music each month or am happy paying $7-10 a month for life. (Amazon's service runs $7 a month if you have Prime.) Fair enough; there are many albums I'd listen to but regret buying, but would I get $7-10 a month of ever proverbial "joy" from that music?

If your daily playlist churns less and you tend to buy for the long term, wouldn't it be better to own an album a month?

I've made this argument on this site before.

But there are really two issues, aren't there?

1. How to most affordably pay for a license to your music, subscription or "own", and...
2. How to access it when you want to listen.

Spotify has apps for every platform. Apple Music famously even has an Android app. My mp3 files have... well, no great options for my phone or work computers.

How do I get ubiquitous access to music files that I own?

I used to use Amazon Music, which gives Prime users like me access to Amazon Prime Music streaming (the "free" subscription) and all the mp3 tracks you've purchased from Amazon, which lets you get around your favorites that aren't in the Prime Music library by... buying them. Seems fair, but you see the issues -- One, I have to buy all my music from Amazon going forward. Two, I can no longer add my own music files I had pre-Amazon. (I actually have 100 grandfathered tracks from when Amazon let you upload music, but that only goes so far.)

I've also tried Foobar 2000 on iOS (direct app store link), which, wacky dated UI aside, works well, but requires that you have your files on the phone, iPod-style, which Apple makes prohibitively expensive. Thanks, Mr. Cook. Can I have an SD slot, please?

Now, after a few failed experiments, I use Astiga, essentially a web-based third-party interface to music files you have in cloud storage. It's a competent app. It supports playlists, and gives you the normal Albums, Artists, Genres, and Songs lists. And it doesn't downsample afaict.

There are some foibles. My least favorite is that it sometimes splits albums into two for... I don't know. Small changes in id3 information? Different file types? (I have some AAC and mp3 mixes, I'm afraid.) But ultimately quote competent.

For sources, it supports, at a minimum...

• pCloud
• Backblaze
• Dropbox
• FTP
• Google Drive
• OneDrive
• Amazon S3
• SFTP
• WebDAV

I've considered keeping a box running at home and SFTPing into it, but decided against. Instead, I've opened a pCloud account and gotten a little less than 10 gigs for free, I believe. With the exception that this isn't nearly enough space, it's worked great. I've added a throw-away OneDrive account too to get twice the songs, but OneDrive often requires a new login to keep Astiga's access current. pCloud has not. pCloud wins by about a mile.

There's even an official Astiga Android app. There are also serviceable, though not great, pCloud apps for iOS and Android. Right now, I use CloudBeats on my phone. YMMV.

Admittedly, I do use a throw-away email address and there's ­nothing­ on my pCloud other than music. I trust most online services and these apps about as far as I can throw them. I really wish I could give read-only access to specific folders in OneDrive, but for some reason what's there now doesn't quite suit.

So Astiga and pCloud wins -- except for the lack of space. I listen to significantly more than 20 gigs of music regularly.

pCloud has a paid tier of 500 gigs for $175 lifetime or 2 TB for $350, on sale for Black Friday for $122.50 and $245. On its face, this seems ludicrous. $123 to host files I own? Super. $123 is a lot of music (the "opportunity cost" in this equation), maybe 10-12 albums on Amazon (my cloud "alternative"), but it's also a great price for 500 gigs of online storage with plenty of throughput.

I think I'm finally going to bite on the 500 gig plan. Again, I don't think I'd put anything particularly sensitive on pCloud, but I would load it up with music. It looks like I have just under 100 gigs of tracks on my "real" OneDrive account now, so that's lots of room to grow. And it would mean I could stop ripping at 256 and go full FLAC if I wanted, for instance.

Looks like I'm back in the "Rip. Mix. Burn. Cloudify. Stream." crowd.

Labels: amazon music, Apple Music, cloud, music, pCloud, spotify

I mean, I've talked about how the great advance of the iPhone was to put a store in our pocket. And I've felt that, at least since we've put our computers on a network essentially 24/7, that we lost control of them. They're ecosystems supporting different, competing programs now, some waring with the OS, some in mutual symbiosis, but all scraping a living in an ecosystem, passively waring with each other.

I think the BMG rootkit from 2005 is one of the clearest examples and it didn't even use a network. You put in media. The media [trivially but importantly] rewrote a portion of your OS. And that media was ostensibly just music! (The Night mp3s Became Sentient...)

I still believe both -- that are computers are biomes for software growth and that their seeding is powered through making our private spaces into public stores -- though I have to admit I didn't comprehend fully in 2008 how phones would become not a but the storefront (fronts?) for us all just over a decade later.

But the commercials still surprise me. Here's one that I received recently upon opening Amazon Music. (I'm a Prime subscriber and get Prime streaming, though I'm also bought into the ecosystem (see?) fully enough that most of my albums are purchased on Amazon, as that means I know I can stream those purchases without worrying if they're in the Prime library this month.)

Looks at how unrelated the items are that come together to make that advertisement. The most galling is that there's no obvious synergy above and beyond simply flexing what they know about you without you ever opting in for sharing it.

1. That I'm listening to Amazon Music.
2. That I'm using it on a Lenovo.
3. That these two things somehow mean I'm more likely to take a deal that's been offered before when I'm not on a Lenovo?

Nothing crazy sensitive there, but... why? Why pretend this is special deal? Why would this combination of facts make me more susceptible to the marketing? "I know I've been holding off on getting a subscription before, but if you're doing it because I like ThinkPads, well, let's make a deal!"

Look, I still think we should give up on most of this privacy stuff. Kids in 50 years will be scared when everyone doesn't know their exact location and what they're buying and will expect that information to be shared passively, without any action on their part. 

For most of us, the VAST majority of us, nobody will ever care about our specifics. Even our most secret thoughts don't make for a hill of beans (unless you're Bush's and competitors) to the companies. Unless someone is looking to have a beef (Hormel?) with a group and actively oppress them (a real consideration, as the last few years have shown us), who cares? You can tease out the NFL teams I follow, what sorts of novels I enjoy, my political persuasion, when I'm likely to buy a car... but so what? Most companies have zero reason to make any of that more actionable than targeting (read "spend more on presenting") a few extra commercials towards me.

It's really seeing how badly companies bungle the information they have that confounds me and gives me some comfort. It's clear many, and by many I mean "most", have no clue what they're doing.

Labels: advertising, amazon music, business, hats o' money, lenovo, privacy

 You can thank me. Sure enough, not three weeks after I waste tons of time making a public "best of" Zeppelin Covers playlist, guess what?

Labels: amazon, amazon music, zeppelin