Music streaming has become a huge money-making service for the companies that had enough sense to set up shop early on. Though there was resistance from the music labels (there always is), the general public has spoken and streaming is here to stay.

The problem is that there are too many services and there really isn’t any actual competition. They all charge virtually the same price and they don’t offer that much variance in their song catalogs. Each one has their own little feature differences and promotional deals for new customers.

I subscribe to Google Play, because I like that I can upload my own music to fill in the gaps where they don’t have certain albums/tracks. I don’t like how there is minimal distinction between music I’ve uploaded and music that is in their catalog. It’s especially annoying when an album has double the number of tracks because the MP3s I uploaded have slightly different track lengths.

The thing that really grates my cheese about all of this is the exclusivity nonsense that is increasing in prevalence thanks to Apple Music. For some reason, Apple Music is the platform that gets 1-2 week early releases. Partly, it’s Apple trying to gain subscriptions from people who can’t wait. It’s also the record labels hoping that people will just buy the music instead of stream it, since it is also usually available in the iTunes store. It makes sense from a business standpoint, but I don’t think I’ll ever be subscribing to Apple Music (beyond the free 3-month trial, suckerz). In the end, I’ll just wait or break out my peg-leg. It’s just sad that this has become a thing. Of course, if the tides turn and Google Play starts getting exclusives, I probably won’t give a shit.