Writing for Wired, David Pierce argues that most music streaming services aren’t optimized for offline listening:

Streaming music has an offline problem. As they’ve fallen all over themselves reminding us how wonderful it is to have 30 million songs only a few taps away, all for the low, low price of $10 a month, these companies have forgotten that the key to a great music experience is pressing play and hearing music. That shouldn’t be as hard as they’re making it.

Sure, offline listening is an option in Rdio, Spotify, Google Play Music, and Apple Music, but it always feels like it’s hidden just enough to make you forget it exists.

As I noted last week on Connected, I don’t usually need to keep music saved offline because I’m either on WiFi or I have plenty of 4G data on my plan for streaming not to be an issue. But I occasionally prefer to save some music offline because of poor cellular coverage (such as at the beach where I go every summer), and browsing offline content feels like a bet against the streaming service.

Even in Apple Music – the successor to the iPod and Music app – browsing offline content in Airplane Mode mostly breaks everything else (static, last-seen previews aren’t cached in the For You and New tabs), and playlists saved for offline listening are still displayed alongside those that are not (even after toggling the offline switch).

I’m excited to start using Apple Music next week, but I was concerned that one of my favorite ways to discover songs I hear around me – Shazam – wouldn’t be ready to support Apple Music at launch. Thankfully, an update released today adds an Apple Music button that, like other streaming integrations before, will let you listen to tagged songs on the new service.

I’ve been preparing for the launch of Apple Music – I deleted Spotify from my iPhone and re-subscribed to Beats Music last night so I can report on the transition – because I’ve been waiting for an Apple music streaming service for a long time, and I want to understand what they’ve built as quickly as possible. The fact that third-party utilities like Shazam and Musixmatch should already work with the updated Music app makes the transition even better.

Taylor Swift, writing on her personal blog, criticizes Apple for lacking any sort of artist compensation during the three-month free trial period of Apple Music:

These are not the complaints of a spoiled, petulant child. These are the echoed sentiments of every artist, writer and producer in my social circles who are afraid to speak up publicly because we admire and respect Apple so much. We simply do not respect this particular call.

I realize that Apple is working towards a goal of paid streaming. I think that is beautiful progress. We know how astronomically successful Apple has been and we know that this incredible company has the money to pay artists, writers and producers for the 3 month trial period… even if it is free for the fans trying it out.

This is not the first time Swift has criticized music streaming services with free trials that can’t pay artists enough (or at all). Notably, her latest album, 1989, is only available for digital purchase and has been withdrawn from streaming services – the same will be the case with Apple Music.

Here’s what Swift wrote in an article for the Wall Street Journal last year:

There are many (many) people who predict the downfall of music sales and the irrelevancy of the album as an economic entity. I am not one of them. In my opinion, the value of an album is, and will continue to be, based on the amount of heart and soul an artist has bled into a body of work, and the financial value that artists (and their labels) place on their music when it goes out into the marketplace. Piracy, file sharing and streaming have shrunk the numbers of paid album sales drastically, and every artist has handled this blow differently.

In a media industry increasingly driven towards free downloads and monetization through other channels, I find Swift’s overall position both sensible and a little too optimistic.

Apple’s terms for the free trial are controversial and I wonder if they could handle this differently. It’s not like Apple doesn’t have the resources to offer a free trial for users and make it up to artists on their own. I think Swift makes a solid argument here.

But I want to touch on the bigger theme as well. Swift is also hoping that an entire generation now accustomed to free YouTube videos and ad-supported streaming will somehow rediscover the lost value of the digital album. Nostalgia can be a powerful selling factor, but, in this case, I’d tend to believe that convenience of free services (or very cheap ones) is a stronger motivation for millions of people.

It sounds sad, but, for many, music has become an easily accessible good with no exclusive value – the money is in concerts and merchandising (basically, emotions and memories that are personal, not online). Ask Nickelback (seriously, read their story). The over 8 million global copies sold by 1989 are sadly an exception these days, and most artists are now rethinking what it means to monetize music at scale. Often, this includes using streaming services and social media to find and nurture future concert-goers.

When even Apple is willing to cannibalize traditional album sales with a cheap streaming service that has a feature to connect artists with fan, you have to wonder if the money really is elsewhere at this point.

If only there could be live shows for app developers too.