Dear Amazon: All is Forgiven (mostly)

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Okay - I'll admit it: it doesn't take much to buy me off.

I've bitched about buying and downloading mp3's to Linux machines and Amazon's non-support for a while - in fact those posts are some of the most visited on my site. But still I stick with Amazon. It's like some trailer park relationship.

But now I'm willing to kiss and make up because now Amazon Prime memberships get FREE MUSIC STREAMING! (I'm doing the happy dance).

I signed up for Prime around Christmas because (I told myself) I needed a package in a hurry. While normally I might have just popped for the extra shipping, the fact that Prime accounts get free 2 day shipping AND video streaming was enough to get me to fork over the cost of a Prime membership. You can do a free one month trial, so why not?  I don't watch a lot of stuff, but I watch some, and it's a nice deal. I even bought myself a Roku device (from Amazon!) for Father's Day this year to make it easier.

But free music streaming? Holy shit!

I love music. It's one of the things (along with martinis) that keep me sane in this world. I listen at work, I listen in bed at night, I listen to my gawdawful commute. And I have a fairly extensive collection of tunes - some purchased, some ripped, some...well, never mind.

So the Amazon deal is huge.

Now, downloading purchased tracks on Linux is still the painful, ugly process that it has been, BUT, with streaming, I essentially eliminate the middle man (my Linux box) and go straight to the playback device: either my iPhone or Android tablet. There is a new Amazon Music app for both devices. If you listen on a computer at home, there's also a desktop app for Windows and Mac (but not Linux - grumble), and for playback, the web app works and is adequate for any platform - including Linux.

The iPhone and Android apps even allow you to download for off-line listening - perfect for the commute home. I download on the company wifi connection and avoid AT&T's cell phone data crap. And given the Content Industry's attitude about ownership and licensing, how different is a track downloaded that you can only play on the device you downloaded it to from the rights they grudgingly parcel out when you "buy" a track?

Now there is some griping that the Amazon catalog is not as vast as that of, say, Spotify, and that there's very little in the way of new tracks. That may be true, but since I've entered my old-fartage, I don't really care that much about newer music. This falls under the "bug or feature" debate in my mind. Give me some Oscar Peterson and Stan Getz and I'm happy.

So thank you, Amazon. Your Linux support when it comes to buying music is still a bit of a fail, but I may not need to buy any more ever again.

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