The Problem With Music Streaming and Why It’s Only the Beginning

There isn’t usually much to talk about when a product is perfect. People may rave for a while, but there’s little to discuss aside from the accusations of a few inevitable dissenters. A product or service that is truly newsworthy, however, is one that is almost perfect – but not quite. An excellent product that offers a solution to a real problem, but that has one or two inescapable flaws of its own can provide months of heated discussion and analysis.

Online music streaming is exactly that kind of product. It’s almost paradoxical, in many ways: on the one hand, people want on-demand music. Who’s going to argue with convenient access to (almost) the entire world catalogue of music? Yet, many people still have a nagging desire for ownership. Ownership may be “for pussies” as Lefsetz so eloquently pronounced in a recent post, but I’m willing to admit that I enjoy downloading a track on iTunes and adding it to my collection. Yes, I understand that my “collection” is really just a store of digital code, but this isn’t about the intellect – it’s about the feeling.

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