On Spotify, music-as-a-service, and losing a favourite song
"Loss is a part of life.
But there are some losses we can control and prevent."
A short essay for the Bitsy Essay Jam, about the importance of owning the media we find meaningful, and why the convenience of streaming platforms has consequences.
Made in Bitsy, with additional help from Pixsy and BitsyMuse.
The song featured in this essay is 'Wishing Wells' by The Colourist. You won't be able to find it on Spotify, but a nice person uploaded it to YouTube.
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this was really good!!! also nice music :3
I really appreciate this! I try to stick with physical media as much as possible, due to the fear of losing something for good, but since I don't have a large amount of money to spend, I have to use streaming services for things like music. It can be even more difficult now, especially since many smaller musicians cannot afford to put out CDs, and so their music is only available digitally.
I'm rambling, but what I'm trying to say is thank you so much for this!
This really touched me since i once lost my spotify account and i couldn't remember any of my favorite songs i listened too, i was very upset because of it. I soon managed to obtain it and i was overhoyed, seeing this bitsy essay did make me realize how easily our things can be forgotten and deleted from us that we love, were at the mercy of others and the bandmembers are at the mercy of their record label. It made me write down my favorite songs just to remember.
Brilliant! I believe this applies to all "something"-as-a-service. I did lose (access to) songs, games, books, TV series and movies because they were removed from the services platforms, that's why I still buy printed books, CDs, DVDs and Blurays every now and then. For the works I really enjoy.
Thank you for this short essay!
nice reflection and nice graphics! i've been doing CDs until my player broke, and i'm 100% bandcamp unti i get that fixed. i also like buying CDs from bandcamp when shipping is reasonable. i do think about not buying CDs anymore because i just want to have less possessions... and i rent an apartment. that was interesting to think about.
this is good but seems to skip over the concept of buying digital media. as long as I have my files, bit-rot aside, they're not going anywhere. CDs are not going to last forever either, sadly.
I also think using Spotify is essentially the same thing as peer-to-peer downloading except that you're giving money to a third party for no reason each month. if you can't afford to buy all your music I'd argue that it's a little better to download everything on Soulseek and buy the occasional album on Bandcamp or something when you can.
That’s a valid point. For me personally, files don’t *feel* like owned media. I think it’s to do with the physicality (or lack of!)
i did have the thought "why dont you just burn the youtube rip onto a dvd?" - the physicality thing is real, but also something that can be DIY'd
This was a great experience to play through! You are very right with the fact that live gigs are something special, it feels great to see the people behind the music in person!
good good! i've been thinking a lot about media-as-a-service lately and have been putting more effort into collecting physical copies of books and albums that mean a lot to me
this was good; but I feel like any essay about the change in consumption of music from analog media to digital would benefit from considering the impact napster et al had on the scene too, though! and the comparison between music-as-a-service like spotify and live gigs is interesting; the major difference is that live gigs are usually the way bands make a majority of their income, whilst spotify is probably the lowest direct income channel
Oh absolutely, I think there’s an argument to be made that streaming services were a ‘necessary evil’ born out of napster and other P2P systems. It’s definitely a topic that warrants further exploration from a creator rather than a consumer perspective.