Nick Heer:

But, most of all, legitimate services will struggle to replace the community that grew naturally within What.cd. It was a place willed into existence by people who truly love music, not something that labels constructed to attract customers, and it was held together by that community. Some digital music services have tried to create similar connections — Apple Music and Spotify users can share their playlists, and iTunes users of the past could do the same with iMixes. Apple, in particular, has tried a little too hard on two separate occasions to turn music into a social network, with little success.

Make no mistake: I understand the legal and ethical ramifications of torrent trackers and file sharing. I would vastly prefer to pay artists — and it’s just the right thing to do. It was merely a perk that What.cd was free, but I do not see that as its defining characteristic. If it were a legitimate streaming service, but was otherwise exactly the same, I would have paid many times the amount of my current Apple Music monthly subscription. That’s how good it was.

I thought this was a really well written, and thought provoking, piece on current music streaming services and where they succeed and fail compared to the piracy platforms that came before.