Music: "The dark side of streaming?", by bonzopoe

If we simplify things a bit, streaming services have as great attraction the huge catalogs they offer, and as a disadvantage that they only "lend" you the contents, since these are never really yours, they only allow you to access them. This may not be a problem for some, but it has implications that are worth considering. and that we explore a bit in this post.

If you have access to Netflix or some other streaming platform for series and movies, it has most likely happened to you that you leave a series or movie to watch later and when you decide to do it, it is no longer available. And if you are a gamer who usually buys games in digital version, you have surely suffered from something similar, or the low quality of the games in their first days on sale, followed by huge and constant updates to correct their bugs and optimize them.

In these two examples, companies are not affected as much as the consumer, but in the case of music, things are a bit different, since the number of creators is infinitely greater, and consequently the possible number of those affected.

Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Deezer and Tidal, to mention only the best-known platforms, have already changed the consumption habits of music fans, who instead of buying records, use the free versions of these services, or pay. a monthly income to access a huge catalog that in many cases they do not take full advantage of, but that every day is seen more as the natural option to listen to music, since it allows you to access practically all the music in the world through your phone cell phone or your computer.

This is putting the power of music distribution in a handful of companies, which although they are not a monopoly independently, seen as a group to some extent they are.

Such is the strength of these companies that artists who have historically opposed streaming systems because they consider each of their albums as a whole in themselves, and are not in favor of the fractional music that these services offer, as well as their systems. of playlists, they have ended up reluctantly giving in to their music being available on these platforms, the most recent case being the band Tool.

It is true that this is a golden age for those of us who love music, but it is not necessarily because of what it is currently produced, but because of being able to have access to a lot of previous music, but the price to pay can be high.

Along with this ease of access to music there has been a regrettable standardization that one can easily notice if you analyze the hits of the moment. Musical genres previously rich in proposals and projection barely survive, rock among them, and the quality of current proposals is far from what we lived in other decades.

Music is now prefabricated much more than before, and then it is made up and packaged for its exhibition and distribution on these platforms that for a modest sum allow us to listen to it from anywhere, especially from cell phones.

Headphones, which were once an alternative to listening to music, have now become the standard, and software in cell phones has replaced quality sound equipment that is increasingly difficult to obtain due to the lack of demand, and that They have become very expensive for being niche products and not everyday as before.

Today we consume music without personality on equipment not designed to play music using cheap headphones. We have lost our curiosity about music and nothing surprises us anymore, as long as it doesn't bore us after 8 seconds, and apparently no one can do anything to stop this avalanche.

The immediacy in access to music. The decontextualization of the themes of the set of discs that contain them. And the large number of users who opt for these platforms are a double-edged sword. Let's hope that the weather calms the waters and we see these years only as an adjustment to the new times, and not as the beginning of a dark age. It sounds dramatic. I know. Hopefully this statement remains a fatalistic view of things and not a future reality.

Thank you very much for reading this post and dedicating a moment of your time. Until next time and remember to leave a comment.