too good

I've just come back from two weeks in Portugal and Spain, getting soaked by violent showers at first but finishing by soaking up the sun. I ate great food for pennies, drank fresh green wine and heavy port, visited place I've never been to and learned new things. More about this later when I've had time to go through my notebook and align my observations.

By a curious set of coincidences, chance encounters I can't recall anymore, I also came across some music I thought intriguing. It was snippets of news from the in-flight magazine and mini-reviews in Galician newspapers, tantalizing but cryptic and absolutely silent. As soon as I got home I did what I usually do when I happen upon new music: I fired up Spotify to hear what I had only been imagining.

Spotify was a godsend when it was launched, an eye-opener, a miracle almost. Its database contains more songs than the hard disk of even the most avid file sharer, ready for streaming at a moment's notice. When I signed up two-and-a-half years ago, I could listen to pretty much any piece of music, legally and for free. It was great for discovering the unknown, an infinite aural treasure chest.

The service was financed by advertisements that broke albums into annoyingly small fragments. The alternative was to pay for a subscription or, more parsimoniously, a day-pass. Provide an unlimited CD collection and you're almost guaranteed to have a happy party. I liked nearly every aspect of Spotify, and I was sure it wouldn't last.

Ads that I don't act on or even listen to can't pay for unlimited music. It was clear to me that the free Spotify accounts were only teasers to get people hooked, make them take immediate music for granted, to suck them into paying five or ten pounds a month for a convenience they wouldn't want to miss.

I knew I wouldn't want to pay for a music subscription, ever. I want to buy music that I can listen to even when the hot music service of the moment (Napster, anyone?) is long forgotten. CDs are my media of choice. But before I place an order, I want to know what I get, and Spotify was great for that.

Back from Spain, I fired up Spotify and was asked, more in-your-face than usually, to purchase a Premium subscription. If not, I would not be able to listen to a song more than five times, and my monthly access would be curtailed at 10 hours. These are serious restrictions, and they render Spotify useless as a personal and personalizable radio. Nevertheless, I stuck with my Free account, which should still be good for test-listening to new music.

Except it might not. Over the last few months, I had already realized a progressive decline in the availability of songs and albums, a thinning of the collection, a rise of songs in pale grey, playable only with a paying subscription. Is it bye-bye Spotify?

Probably, and I'm not surprised. The free service was always too good to be true. But for the moment, things are still all right. The three new released I had been interested in were all available. I've started listening to Sidi Touré and the Orchestre Poly-Rythmo and, with no connection at all, the Beastie Boys. No decision yet on a purchase, but if I part with my money it will be one-off for a lasting value and not the intangibility of a subscription.