I'm cleaning out my gmail folders this weekend, and went deep into the archive to 2011, when I got my invite to Google Music.
It's funny, because I just (November) moved all of my music out of cloud and back to local-only. Amazon was the last straw, when I tried to play purchased music, and was forced to listen to it on shuffle with other songs not of my choosing.
Anyway... there was a time when Google (ahem, Youtube) Music was set to be a game-changer. Imagine if enshittification wasn't a thing.
Ah yes, Google Music was nice.
I'm so happy to still have my trusty iPod Classic 128Gb. I have a little Bluetooth dongle for its headphone jack (remember those?) that pairs with my hearing aids. All my tunes and podcasts in my pocket, no phone signal required.
Recently I downloaded iTunes again because I'm trying to consolidate my music library/listening history from all my old services and get them on Jellyfin.
And...I'd honestly forgotten how legitimately good a piece of software iTunes is. Not perfect, obviously, but I'd forgotten what it was like to have sophisticated music management tools. Just the sheer amount of options and tools to sort and manage the list, to be able to edit the properties, etc.
Then you look at modern streaming apps and it's all just...terrible. The user is completely neutered. You can't do even half as much with them. Things are just straight up hidden or don't exist anymore, you have very few methods of controlling how things are organized or sorted, etc.
"Modern" design principles seem to be "you can just deal with using the app the way we think you should, we won't give you the ability to make it your own".
That's what made Google Play Music so good: it was that beautiful sweet spot between the useful tool of iTunes-esc music management and the convenience of the streaming services. I didn't feel like my hands were tied when using it like I do with Spotify.
I only tried Spotify once. I read a reference to a song I wanted to listen to but didn't own. Searched for it on Spotify, found it, and clicked to play it. It played something else entirely, not even by the same artist. I tried a few times, but it wouldn't play that song or anything by that artist. I guess I just don't understand Spotify?
Spicetify helps ease the pain a little bit