When I was in high school and college I couldn’t get enough of music. I had cassettes everywhere and then CDs. My CD collection grew rapidly and storage became a problem.
It feels like I’ve been creating playlists forever. analog and digital playlists.
But I have to tell you – in the time post college and before social music sites appeared (last.fm, hype machine, project playlist et al), I was in a lull. I was still listening to music like crazy but I wasn’t buying anything new. Why? Because discovery was impossible or very hard at best.
But social music sites changed all that for me. My addiction to these sites have only boosted my music spending. Yes p2p darknets have been a challenge to the artists and the labels. And artists need to get paid. Abosolutely. But the economic model and distribution needs to change.
The industry needs to move forward. We need to figure out how to make a thousand social music sites bloom. I want more and better social music sites not less. I want it everywhere. I want to access my friends playlists, music blogs, personal radio, recommendations on my tv, on my computer, on my bug, on my phone, in my car. Everywhere.
Consumers will pay more as the “product” gets better.
The heavy handed approach of shutting down sites or suing them isn’t the answer.