We've lost: cover art, liner notes, the ability to share or sell your music without 3rd party permission, music stores, and in many cases local music scenes that formed around music stores. Bret Victor has been harping on this for years, but we've also lost a great deal of tactility - putting a CD in a player and pressing buttons to play it uses your hands in pleasant ways that screens just aren't.
As for discovery, the promise is greater than reality. I used Spotify for a while specifically for this purpose, but I didn't discover a single new artist through it. YouTube, by contrast, has introduced me to new artists, as have a few radio stations like KCRW and KQED (who both have excellent YT channels too). And you know what? Music discovery is a different mode of listening than enjoying my library and ne'er the twain shall meet, IMHO.
Spotify does have cover art for albums, at least for me it does.
> Music discovery is a different mode of listening
For me it really is the same mode. I regularly discover new artists when my handcrafted playlists finish playing and it starts to play music based on the playlist I just listened to
I think parent means something like this: https://www.encartespop.com.br/2012/09/encarte-pink-floyd-da...
The vinyl and especially CD covers were sometimes a little more than just barren images.
That's surprising. I've never used Spotify for this, but 10+ years ago used Pandora for that purpose. I was overjoyed with the new artists I learned about.
Spotify is amazing for discovery, they’re holding it wrong.
Why would you say that? It's a pretty harsh dig, and it's not justified. I tried Spotify and didn't like it. I never said I hated it. I don't like it because I weight its trade-offs differently than you. I mean, have YOU tried the alternative I've suggested? If not, is it because of your ideology?
1. Cover art / liner notes - any given digital album can include links to these notes or even a website with the cover art, and if you're referring to the physical component I would argue that's just less trash that comes with the predominant reason for me purchasing music... which is the music.
2. Ability to share music - I frequently share music from Spotify all the time, either using the Spotify link and sending it to my friends over Chat, or even just telling them the name of it and they can frequently find the exact song on YouTube.
3. Ability to sell music - since I'm not really purchasing the music on Spotify I don't feel like this is a fair argument
4. Music stores - i'll give you this one though for a lot of us we simply don't have the free time to physically browse for music in a brick and mortar store.
5. Discovery - anecdotal of course but I've had the exact opposite experience, the Discover weekly list that Spotify provides invariably introduces me to new artists that I would've otherwise never even heard of, and if I like a song I can look for playlists curated by users that contain that song, which is an additional avenue of discovery.
Yup, that is the core issue. We have all this great tech, but then deploy it against ourselves. The peak is when FB optimized for polarized (ahem fake) content, because that is what drives "engagement".
I'm not sure what is the solution here. Regulations around more algorithmic transparency? "Low tech" alternatives? User education?
Other people like streaming, and want The Algorithm to feed them discovery, and that's fine--it's just not for me.
I mean if Spotify UX is bad, YouTube is absolutely trash. I have to pay to be able to stream media if my phone is locked.
Not really.
It's easier than ever to be exposed to a select group of pre-selected songs by a small subset of artists churned out by a computer program for the purpose of getting you to continue your subscription. That's not discovery.
Go into any real music store, like Louisiana Music Factory in New Orleans, Amoeba Music in Los Angeles, or Electric Fetus in Minneapolis, and you'll find thousands of albums and artists that are not on streaming, never have been on streaming, and never will be on streaming.
The tech companies have made people believe that they're seeing everything, but they're not. They're just looking through a keyhole into the world of music.
For example, Apple boasts something like 90 million songs on Apple Music. The reality check is that's probably less than 1% of the world's recorded music.
People on HN rail against "walled gardens" in app stores, and then wall themselves into one streaming service or the other because they bought the infinite music hype, and don't even know it.
I can spin this argument directly around and guarantee that if you go to the Louisiana music factory in New Orleans, that for every artist and album they know about, there are 1000 international or country specific artists that are available only online to listeners in America via online channels.