Once upon a time, you bought records. The tapes (of various sorts). Then CDs.
You bought the music and, beyond certain laws against using it for a public performance, it was yours: tangible, possessable, loanable.
(Of course, if you lost the CD, or the LP got a bad scratch on it, you were SOL. So there was that down side.)
The rise of online music services created — for a time — a hybrid model. You could buy stuff, but that stuff could be kept online. No need to download it. Heck, if you already had music files, you could upload them to those services.
Gradually, those services started pushing streaming content — you don’t “own” the music, you pay for a period of access to a library of music. Once you stop paying, you can’t listen.
There was still a hybrid model, though — the streaming services (we’ll tag the main ones as iTunes, Google Music, and Amazon music) let you upload the MP3 files you owned, and you could listen to them (or the matched tracks from the streaming service), and you could (for a monthly fee) access the streaming service as well.
Now that model is beginning to fade, as Amazon announces that it will stop letting you upload music to its Amazon Music servers; you’ll still have access (when that goes into effect) to music you bought at Amazon, or, of course, to the Amazon streaming service.
It is probably incredibly Luddite to me that I still prefer knowing that I have my own, personal copy of my music files, not contingent on Amazon (or whomever) staying in business, or not changing the terms of the streaming agreement. But by a wild coincidence I was looking today at options for music access on family mobile phones (given our own internal, weird music setup of physical files, iPods, etc.), and had decided to go with Google vs Amazon as the streaming / connecting / music site of choice.
If I had any doubts about it, Amazon just settled them.
Amazon Music removes ability to upload MP3s, will shutter storage service
Take some time to re-download all those tracks you previously uploaded.
I can't use streaming only, which kinda limits me to music I have bought and ripped, or downloaded without DRM.
I’m with you. I want a copy of the bits.
I've been using both for awhile, but I'm actually most excited by Plex Media Server. I run something on my home network, and it gateways through Plex's online piece to let me access the media from anywhere. They're also rolling out a Winamp clone called Plexamp that's designed to be a lightweight music player.
+Bill Garrett I used Plex for a while to see how it was, but unless you use their paid service it no longer does much even in the local network. It does have to be that way, but they’ve made it limited.
I'm a big user of streaming media and I have essentially stopped buying physical media. Just a couple of months ago, though, something happened that made me rethink my decisions: Louis CK got busted for being a creep. His streaming content vanished off of major streaming sites within days. Now I don't own any of his material and I don't know that people who bought it have also lost it, but there's that potential. What if the streaming content I own gets caught in a dragnet like that and taken down? Not a fan of that possibility.
+Roy Hembree And it doesn't have to be because of something like that. As media and tech companies continue to merge and blur, what happens if artist X on a Universal-owned label suddenly signs a new contract on an Amazon-owned label; will Comcast-Universal-NBC stop carrying any of X's work? What about that stuff you've been streaming through the iTunes store of X's — will they carry the Amazon-based stuff?
There's a big collision a-coming in the next 5-10 years on this stuff. My prediction is that the ideas of "I can get anything I want from anywhere" will end up seriously fenced into provider-based walled gardens, pay for each one (but only use their proprietary equipment / format for it, or else). Ch-ching.