Isn't it because it differs so much from movie streaming? On major music streaming platforms you can find most of the popular music artists. I don't have any numbers to back it, but my gut feeling tells me a-number-so-close-to-100 percent that it doesn't even matter anymore it may not be actually 100. Movies? You can't get Disney on Netflix, you can't get Apple on HBO, you can't get... you just can't. Imagine having Metallica on Netflix, Madonna on Apple, Beatles on Sony and Silent Poets on Amazon.

Music streaming doesn’t suffer nearly the fragmentation issues film and television streaming services have, though.

If I want to listen to something as common as Kanye or something as obscure as MSTRKRFT, I can do it on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, pretty much anything. And I only need to subscribe to one service.

If I want to watch something as common as ‘Inception’ or as indie as ‘Twin Peaks’, there’s virtually no chance I’d be using the same services.

The experience with video streaming is literally just some of the worst ever in terms of finding content. You pretty much have to just pick whichever one seems the best and pirate whatever else you need, which begs the question of why not to just pirate in the first place. That’s just not the case with music.

> MSTRKRFT

17 million listens. I would not call that obscure.

As a matter of fact a lot of truly obscure stuff barely gets to SoundCloud, let alone Spotify.

I don’t think this really affects my point that the fragmentation situation is infinitely better with streaming music than it is with video.

Here’s - perhaps - a better explanation as to why.

The majority of major music labels - Sony/BMG, Columbia, EMI, etc - have the majority of their music available on the majority of the available streaming services.

This situation is unfortunately worsening on video streaming platforms as every major studio and their brother wants to completely commit to their own service.

It’s even worse as the result of this weird licensing moving around is series and films being removed from services you’d previously subscribed too mainly for those particular shows or films.

The only result of this is value loss and confusion presented to the consumer - as the recent CNN+ disaster shows, along with Netflix’s flailing subscriber count.

The music streaming world is exponentially better. Like - subscribing to a music streaming service is actually worthwhile. Video streaming services decrease in value with every new one that is introduced.

I did the same thing. I used to put a lot of effort into getting a perfect FLAC rip of everything I ever listened to, having them on my devices, or setting up streaming from a home server. I threw that shit out a long time ago, partly because I don't listen to the garbage that I used to, and partly because I've got better things to fuss over now. The amount of time worrying about file integrity, backups, server being up (and updated)...sorry, 90‰ of it is music I'll just get tired of soon. It wasn't worth it. Spotify makes more sense for me.

Same with movies. As I've gotten older, I can name about a dozen movies I'd like to watch again. I can afford to buy the next "highest quality release ever" when the time comes.

Agreed except a lot of my old CDs aren't available on Spotify. I do plan on ripping a select portion of them when I find them again. But it'll only consist of my favorite records and unavailable.

Before I do that though, I'm going to check into Youtube Music. It's possible what I don't find on Spotify is available there.

Movies, I don't find many are missing from services. Perhaps the movies I loved were less obscure than the music. I don't plan on ripping a single DVD or VHS tape.

That works until UMG etc start their own streaming services and take their content off spotify for this or any other reason.

I'd wager that UMG et al would be in breach of contract. I have to imagine they have an agreement not to "broadcast" in exchange for being paid license fees. Disney/ABC etc own lots of radio stations, and I doubt anyone really wants that legal battle.

Could you listen to the song Cop Killer by Body Count?

There's a metric ton of neo-Nazi bands that aren't on Spotify as well. I don't know if it's Ice-T or Spotify stopping Cop Killer from being on the service, but Spotify and similar are private companies that don't have to host everything that they don't want.

> are private companies that don't have to host everything that they don't want.

I agree. Which is why I like to own my media.

Very well. I support that. I too, own a lot of media.