Which is exactly what I did when the first iPod was released. I don't know how many CDs I have since some albums have multiple CDs, but the total number of songs I have on CD and paid for is 37,000+.
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Where is the Music "iTunes" store?
- Thread starter machenryr
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Glad you found it – I personally disable Apple Music and leave the iTunes Store enabled as well. I almost only ever want to listen to a small selection of music, and music's promotion to that selection usually involves being something I'll gladly pay the album price for. (Though far from a deep hole, I'd consider Settings the first place I'd look for anything I couldn't find, and it's right there in the first tab.)
Apple Music is indeed the featured service; that's been true for ten years this month. I'm really just thankful the company has continued to support the iTunes Store that whole time. If they really didn't want to, presumably they wouldn't.
I think every generation tends to think that they music the grew up with is the "best," when it's only their interpretation of the best.
There are acts (the Beatles come to mind) that can transcend generations to an extent, but the formative experiences have a very large influence on taste, and judgement of what is still mostly a subjective assessment for most people.
Musicians, and those with that experience can discern the skill and proficiency of the artist, but most people just like what "sounds good" to them.
Go watch the YT music videos, especially older ones, and the most common comments are the "they don't make it like they used" or "this band is so underappreciated" types.
Making mix tapes used to be a labor of love, and required commitment, to have the sources on hand, determine what will fit within the time limits, and to hit the cues from one source to the next, which became much easier once vinyl records gave way to CDs.
(Speaking of which, the younger generations will also never know the joy of trolling record stores for new and used records and CDs, which was also a time consuming exercise, rewarded by those occasional "finds")
Media consumption has changed in general, not just for music. The music industry has always harbored the dream of being paid for each time a song is played, and they've finally achieved that, albeit for minuscule amounts from the streaming services.
Touring, playing shows (and selling merch) has always been the best way for musicians to make money (provided they don't encounter a crooked promoter, or venues), and the streaming/rental model has only served to reinforce that.
Terrestrial radio has also suffered, and lost its place as the primary method of music discovery, when the streaming services offer an instant, on-demand almost endless buffet of all the consumer can eat, and control.
In my mind, the low-cost rental, a la carte, method of distribution has also served to devalue music, when it is so cheap, readily available, and so easily discarded. In the past, when the costs of acquiring music was higher, there was added joy when discovering a good album, and deeper pain when you realized that album you just spent the hard-earned money on was only good for a couple singles.
I so take exception to this misconception - at least it's not been my experience. The best way for musicians to have made money in the music industry WAS to make records that sell and take a percentage of the profits of royalties from sales as well was radio play. But that's gone now. The only people who can really make money from merch are relatively established acts. But the road to "relatively established" has become so increasingly difficult. Brand new bands are forced to "pay to play" with 5 others bands. They're responsible for buying their own tickets to the their own show, 1/5th of the night, sell them to their "fans" and try to sell merch they can ill afford to get. The pot of gold used to be a "hit record" that would make the band millionaires. No=w the pot of gold is a million plays and split $100.
I wonder how long streaming can be sustained. I was from involved in physical media and it was gravy train for labels and artists versus how streaming is working now. Sadly my Napster generation is to blame with the decline and all the job losses!
I'm amazed that artists don't push physical media more. all I see them is pushing steaming platforms on their social media channels. I don't get it, its like everyone has given up on physical.
Both were correct at one point, we've gone full circle now. In the early days of the recording industry the records were like promos for an artist's live performances. Then they became a mass consumption thing that was a moneyspinner in itself (though artists still only got $1 per album unit sold).
Streaming might not be as lucrative but it was the best alternative to people just pirating and paying nothing. It has to be priced low enough to remove the incentive to pirate.
As I understand it, streaming as per all-you-can-play on-demand "jukebox-style" services like Apple Music, Spotify and so forth does not cost the user anything, at least not per song. The monthly access is what costs.
Are the monthly charges for Apple Music and similar services fair? Maybe for users, although they can't "keep" or own what they listen to. (Quit the service, the music stops.) Is the price low enough to reduce the incentive to pirate the individual songs you want to hear? Maybe... although pirates will always be pirates.
Streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music have lowered the bar so that enjoying a lot of music becomes affordable. For eight out of ten people, it fulfills the "easy" need, in a way that digital purchases like the iTunes Store could not.
As others have commented, artists make only a fraction of a penny when their songs are streamed on these platforms (and many restrictions and conditions apply as to if and when the payout is actually made). Artists do get a larger share when their songs are outright purchased in digital format. Platforms like the iTunes Store and Bandcamp still do give listeners that option. Still, most people won't buy it if they can already listen to it as part of their subscription.
Platforms like Bandcamp still prominently feature indie artists who also sell physical media. Surprisingly, selling physical media is one of the few ways where indie artists can actually make money (as opposed to the paltry income from streaming), if they are careful about it and have an established fan base that wants to buy it. Taylor Swift, for instance, still has a specialized online storefront for her releases on vinyl. Also, older people and audiophiles might want vinyl records and CDs. (There's nothing like holding the album with the cover art and the fold-out or pull-out liner notes and inside artwork.) Some people are even still buying cassettes, although that market is clearly very narrow.
What about the issue of where we want to go as a society? Making, buying and owning lots of stuff has not worked out well for humanity, in terms of the global environment. Streaming services or even digital purchases of music might not be any better—they also add a burden on the environment in terms of the electricity needed to power all those servers, and the resources needed to manage and maintain them. Maybe the shift to music streaming is not just based on convenience, but also on a shift towards living in a more minimal, more resource-mindful way.
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As an aside, the introduction of iTunes Match was serendipitous for me. At the time I'd ripped my entire CD library at the original default of AAC 128. I then came into (legitimately) a bunch of songs at MP3 320. So I was facing the First World problem/OCD issue of having some sections of my library better quality than others.
Thanks to iTunes Match I was able to consolidate my entire library as iTunes+ (AAC 256, basically equivalent to MP3 320) without re-ripping everything.
I soon hit the 25,000 track limit but luckily they eventually lifted it to 100,000.
The maximum track count aside, doesn't your uploaded music content count against your iCloud storage quota? I have a number of albums uploaded to Apple Music as part of iTunes Match, but I can't imagine that Apple would just give users all that free storage space.
Ouch. But wait... I've noticed that I can add my own original music to Apple Music (or just open an MP3 file with Apple Music, I think), and it will automatically sync that across all my authorized Apple devices running Apple Music.
I thought that this functionality was what we're calling "iTunes Match"... but I guess I am wrong...
If iTunes Match is something different from Apple Music library syncing between Apple devices, then maybe iTunes Match does not use the user's iCloud storage after all?
To keep the math simple, let's say I buy an album for $10, it has 10 songs, and I listen to it 10 times over its lifetime. That's 100 song plays for 1000 cents, or 10 cents per play. If I listen to it 100 times, that's 1 cent. Pulling some numbers off the internet, Apple music does seem to pay 1 cent per play.
On the other hand, how many hours per month does the average Apple Music user stream? Again to keep math simple, let's say 1.7 a day or 50 a month, 3000 minutes or 600 5-minute songs. From that Apple pays out $6, about half what it collects from a single person subscription. A good part of the rest surely goes to employee salaries (engineers, negotiators, marketers, etc.) and infrastructure costs.
If Apple were to try to pay artists at a rate similar to 10x-listened albums, that would be $60 per month and they could probably price their subscription at $70.
If artists were making more money before it could be that the average album-listening amount was closer to 10 than 100, or it could also be that there are so many more artists today that the listeners are split more widely.
On the other hand, how many hours per month does the average Apple Music user stream? Again to keep math simple, let's say 1.7 a day or 50 a month, 3000 minutes or 600 5-minute songs. From that Apple pays out $6, about half what it collects from a single person subscription. A good part of the rest surely goes to employee salaries (engineers, negotiators, marketers, etc.) and infrastructure costs.
If Apple were to try to pay artists at a rate similar to 10x-listened albums, that would be $60 per month and they could probably price their subscription at $70.
If artists were making more money before it could be that the average album-listening amount was closer to 10 than 100, or it could also be that there are so many more artists today that the listeners are split more widely.
Subscribing to Apple Music gives you in principle 100% the same technical features as you get subscribing to iTunes Match (Early on this was not the case). The ONLY difference is that with Apple Music, the iCloud storage space is free, while with iTunes Match you use your own iCloud storage space. Confusing? Yes. But that is Apple being Apple.
Whoa, you do? Storage space isn't… part of what you're paying for when you pay for iTunes Match?
iTunes Match is the same as iCloud library syncing, Apple has confused things by rolling iTunes Match into AM and using different names. And storage is included in the price. When you cancel AM you need to subscribe to iTunes Match to maintain online access to your own songs (as I have done several times).
The only storage limit for iTunes Match is the 100k songs. And you're not really using their storage anyway as they're the same songs as in the Apple Music/iTunes store (aside from the ones that aren't matched and need to be uploaded, which in my experience is around 15% of songs - it may have improved).
The use of the term "iCloud" obviously confuses things, but think of it in the same context as photo sharing - iCloud is just a conduit, it's not actually using your personal storage.
Also, to avoid the nightmare of having AM tracks mixed up with my own music, I haven't added any AM tracks to "My Library". I just search when I want to stream something. Haven't given any thought to a more elegant solution yet (except maybe a Smart Playlist?)
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