I’ve been playing with Spotify for the better part of a week and I think I’ve decided that, at least for me, it’s not an iTunes replacement. The music that I really like, I will still buy it via iTunes or Amazon. For one thing, it’s really cheap (Amazon runs those $5 album deals all the time), and two, it means that I’ll always have music available when I’m out of range of any signal (without paying $10/month). I also don’t want my music tied to a company that could go out of business, or lose rights to certain artists, or whatever horrible licensing catastrophe the RIAA can come up with (c.f Netflix Streaming, it’s lack of new titles, and ever rotating collection of long tail titles).
What Spotify (and, presumably, all of the other streaming music services) is really good at is listening to the music you don’t like enough (i.e. you’re too embarrassed) to keep in your iTunes library. When you’re playing foosball and someone references Michael McDonald, you can go back and listen to “I Keep Forgettin’”. When you hear some 90s R&B on the radio, you can play yourself some Jodeci and Joe Public. You can binge on Dan Folgelberg and the Little River Band.
Spotify fills in the gaps in your library with the music you would never really buy. Because you’re too ashamed of it.
Which is awesome.
And also, likely, its downfall.
If Spotify (or Rhapsody or any of the other streaming services) really take off, why wouldn’t Apple (or Amazon) get the same streaming licenses that Spotify has? If iTunes let you stream any music off of the music store (and create playlists, tag songs, etc), wouldn’t that be about the best complement to buying music? Sure, there are some folks who will buy less music (trading it for whatever monthly fee Apple charges), but a whole bunch of people will stream a bunch of music, then buy more (when they realize they’ve listened to Hall & Oates 10 times in a row).
This seems like the logical next step for iTunes/iCloud (as well as for Amazon’s MP3 Store/Cloud Player, and probably for Google Music, too). And a likely death (or, in a best case, acquisition) for the streaming music services. One of them will probably survive, just as an alternative to the Apple/Amazon cartel.
So enjoy it while it lasts. In a couple of years, it’ll be part of iTunes (like everything else).
What’s That You Say?