This.

Content providers don't seem to understand the value of permanently discarding unwanted content. They don't grasp the scale of the typical user's music (or book, or game, or whatever) library, and the user's mental capacity for managing it. I've stopped using Starbucks' "pick of the week" precisely because I _don't_want_ most of what I download & hear from them; I've already some 500 albums that I bought & know, and don't need hundreds (or just dozens) more unwanted one-track "albums", or even full albums, cluttering up the list. I'd like to give a new album/band a chance with a free download, but not if I can't make 'em go away (be it at all, or with convoluted effort) as most I don't care to keep.

Worse, AFAIK Apple still hasn't restored/fixed the swipe-and-tap-to-delete option for music put on a device via iTunes Match. Allowing the notion of having a vast permanent collection of all my purchased audio content in the cloud (whether I wish to keep that content or not), there's no sane way to remove downloaded material from individual devices. I've several large fragments of audiobooks taking up gigabytes on my phone which I desperately want to delete, but the only way seems to wipe ALL "music" and re-download what I want (and with some pretty scary-worded warnings in the process).

Yes, content providers, there's some content I've "purchased" but no longer want. Please give me a way to remove it from my life, permanently.

They do let you hide purchases so that they won't show up on in the music list on iOS and iTunes. They won't let you delete a purchase, which makes sense.

It's confusing because they're using purchase history as a basis for your entire library, which might not sync up with your mindset for your music list. I've definitely hidden past purchases that I know I'll never need easy access to.

Honest question: is there any compelling reason to tie the account you buy songs from to your device? It seems to me that the way the manage your music for you is more of a nuisance than anything else.

Maybe I should restate the question in more general sense. I keep my gmail logged out while I browse, I never connect my kindle to wifi, because I find all of these integration moves to be more of a nuisance than anything else. So in general hat's in it for me? what's good reason to sell all of my data to large_tech_company, as opposed to just some of it?

I agree. I have to play whack-a-mole to keep songs out of my library that I'm no longer interested in.