It's totally dumb because it's not about getting a good deal for consumers or artists, purely about rights-holders maximising revenue. If they can't negotiate a good enough deal in a region they'll simply not allow it to be streamed. This is what happens when they separate the cultural value of "content" from the monetary value of it, the perceived desirability. Viewers and listeners want a good show to watch or album to hear, rights-holders simply want to get a good deal, regardless of what the stuff it.

Yeah, I once discovered an artist, even bought some albums, only to notice about a year later that the place I discovered them was now blocked in my country. If I would've come a year later, I would never have bought these albums.

Quick guide that's been shared around online lately for those unsure what this is:

they're asking for you to hand over your wallet, repeatedly

I started back up again with Lidarr + Plexamp, with the noted exception that I've actually tried to buy music from Bandcamp.

1. Not everything I want is available on the high seas
2. I'm at a place financially where I can drop $40 on something like Lagwagon's back catalog.

Honestly? It's way better than Spotify - the Plexamp DJs work really well, I can offline download albums for runs/work (where I'm in the basement and have zero cell coverage).

Ahh remember the good ol times when you could insert a jrpg cd into a cd player and could listen to all the music.

I see more often than I'd like to see retconned and greyed out releases in my playlist...
The fuck am I paying them.
God do I hate those publisher licensing agreements.

Bandcamp is also good. You get flac downloads and the artists get money and more so than on other platforms

enshittification?

"Enshittification"