DISQUS

Mathew's comments: Why do we like to collect music?

  • calamityjake · 1 year ago
    It's true. I don't really want the mp3s. But I do want a list of "my" music files, so that I can organize them (by rating, adjusting tags, compiling playlists, etc). And there's no technical reason why I couldn't do those same things from an all-you-can-eat subscription service. I used to use Rhapsody to listen to music at work, and I really liked it, but I found that a lot of music I owned (or just wanted to listen to) wasn't available. It was also a pain to transfer to my portable players (in fact,as I recall I never quite managed to get it to work on my "compatible" players, and naturally it didn't work with my iPod).

    Now imagine if the hypothetical iPhone subscription service allowed you to stream anything in a comprehensive library right to your portable device? They could even include mobile access to podcasts. If they got the interface right, and they got the iPhone working with 3G--eventually 4G--that would sound just great to me.
  • mathewi · 1 year ago
    I agree, Jake -- if it could be configured properly so that you could
    create what amounts to a personal library, then it would be as good as
    having them all in your posession. And yet, as Fraser notes in his
    comment, I think lots of people would still feel a subconscious desire
    to have them and own them and possess them.
  • Fraser · 1 year ago
    From what I've heard from many music fans, the cultural attachment to possessing music (probably the same trait that in the extreme drives one to collect 3 gazillion songs) has been the major impediment to music dial-tone.

    It's not a question of whether they'd hoard if they had access, but that they're resisting streaming because they hoard.
  • Leigh · 1 year ago
    Besides how would my 7 year old at the time be able to ask me about my really big CD collection and get into Jimmy Hendrix if not for music hoarding?
  • Daniel · 10 months ago
    I'm reading this because I was surfing over the internet trying to get some serious information about "music addiction". I am Physician, so almost all night after job and long sessions of reading, I just started to see new releases, to look for nice albums in torrents and thinks like that. I know it's weird, the matter in collect toons of mp3 is that you really know is impossible to listen them, so I use to change all the music that i have in my Ipod frequently. Every new album goes to the ipod.
    My friends sometimes get surprised the amount of nice albums that I get, even when they are not always comercial.

    I am not worried at all, it's just like a different hobby, As I'm DJ just for fun, I'm always looking for new albums and version.

    It's true! you can't touch all the collection, one can only see the covers and that's all, but even so, this is Kind of addictive.

    best!
    Happy new year!