I've been a Spotify user ever since it became available in Italy, in 2013.
I was 14 at that time and pretty naive. My father had always taken care of everything regarding technology and payments; he was the wisest in the family, and the most knowledgeable. I'm saying this because I remember the secrecy with which I started using the app, and the fear of my father finding out my "going behind is back" by not consulting him on the matter.
I knew Spotify was something people paid for, but I downloaded it anyway. I wanted a taste of the heaven it promised: an unlimited music catalog in my pocket. I created an account, feeling lucky and relieved when it allowed me to proceed without asking for any credit card information.
Somehow, I thought that I was signing up for a mere 30-day free trial. When, after a month, I could still listen to music without having to pay a cent, I felt overjoyed, foolishly thinking that they forgot about me and that I had to take advantage of that mistake.

Gradually, very slowly, Spotify replaced the iPod I used to carry around with me. There's no surprise here: it allowed me to carry only one item (my phone) instead of two, and I needn't have to worry about curating my catalogue of artists and albums anymore.
To be honest, I kinda miss it now. The excitement of downloading new albums, the meticulous editing of each track's MP3 tags, and the hard decision making needed to fit everything inside those precious few GBs of space, often having to replace or rotate various artists... it was fun.
I am a very nostalgic person and there might be nothing more to it than that, yet I feel I'm right when I say that listening to music has become a soulless experience. Of course, I'm not talking about the actual listening activity but everything else surrounding it. We have it easy, too easy. In a matter of seconds I could play any song out of any album from any artist, even ones I have never heard before. It's great. It is a wonder of modern technology. I couldn't live without this, and yet! it brings me no joy.

It sounds crazy but having less choice, being bounded by those precious few GBs of space, made the whole experience feel more... familiar. I knew what song were stored on that device, I selected each one of them, deeming them worthier than countless others. That iPod was my pile of gold, and I the dragon sleeping on it — literally, I fell asleep with it in my bed so many times, like a boy with its stuffed animal!

Still, I had the pleasure to experience moments of delightful surprise, when a song would come up that I had forgotten about. This happens with Spotify too but you see how it is different? With an infinite number of songs, it becomes easier to forget many of them. This results in more frequent moments of rediscovery, which inevitably loose their magic.

All of this actually reminds me of something I read months ago, from Zach at flower.codes. In this post he basically says similar things, in a better way.

[music] It's not curation, it's consumption.

He blames playlists and he's right. The playlistification of music has left us with no control and no lasting connection to what we listen to. On the other hand, there are many artists I now love that I discovered by chance through playlists, and I feel conflicted.
What are we to do? What can we do? Take back control? Go back to iPods and MP3 players?

I loved my iPod with all my heart! It was a match made in heaven — me with it. We were inseparable. Waking up in the morning, I would first put on my glasses, and then the iPod; everything else came after, as it was less important.
Why, then, don't I use it anymore? It would spare me the nostalgia and the need to write this convoluted post, right? Right. But it would also mean carrying another item with me — two, actually, with the earphones — and those precious few GBs, which even then felt limiting, would now be a humiliating torture.
I could put the music on my phone and use the default media player but, again, I would fill up my space in no time.
And so wins Spotify, with its playlists and its vast catalogue.

I should mention the bizarre, mysterious, perplexing, extraordinary way in which that iPod came into my hands.
You might have thought I had simply bought it. In that case, I forgive your naivety, for you don't know me and my family. That digression about my father being in charge of decisions regarding technology and spendings is still relevant and I add this to the picture: he has never been — and still isn't — a fan of Apple products.
So no, I didn't bought it. I stole it.

That was an overly dramatic statement, but still true... in a way.
My grandfather found that iPod in his car. He had no idea what it was but he brought it to me thinking it was something of mine. I remember seeing it from afar, knowing he had found it in his car and thinking "It must be his phone's battery that probably fell off". Then I got closer and "Holy shit! It has a screen!".
I haven't said this before, I'm talking about a black iPod Nano 7. If you know the model, you can understand how I mistook it for a phone battery.
Anyway, to this day we have no idea how that thing ended up in my grandfather's car. Booting it up for the first time I saw it had no more than a dozen songs on it: a couple from Katy Perry, Rihanna, possibly Justin Bieber (can't remember)... it definitely belonged to a young girl. There was no iCloud account associated with it, though (was iCloud even a thing in 2013?), and I had no way to get her name. My grandfather definitely did not gave a ride to any young girls, the only thing he had done that was out of the ordinary was going to a car wash.
I remember we debated whether to go there with the hope of finding the owner by asking if anybody had recently lost an iPod, but we decided against it; anyone could have claimed it without proof. Admittedly, I was already secretly celebrating my brand new toy when somebody suggested it might actually be my aunt's. We called her, and she confirmed that it was hers. I was crushed. Later that day, when she stopped by our house and saw it, she realized that it was not what she thought it would be — she didn't even know what an iPod was!
Needless to say, I was not crushed anymore.

And that's the story of how I unwittingly ended up with an iPod, stolen from — I don't even know who.

Going back to Spotify... I've established that I love it, that I hate it, that I can't live without it and yet would gladly consider giving it up for a more limited solution.
One thing I started doing is limit my usage of playlists by listening directly to artists and specific albums. Why am I doing this, though? Out of respect for me? for the artists? That's stupid! They definitely don't care, Spotify doesn't care — as long as I keep using it, and I shouldn't care either.

I don't know.
I guess this is part of a larger feeling of inadequacy I'm experiencing. The endless possibilities and choices I face every day on the internet feel like both a blessing and a curse. I'm loosing myself, piece by piece, the more I explore. I'm filling up my mind with too much information and noise, and it's clouding the inner core.