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5 Things I Hate About Amazon Prime Music
When an Upgrade is Degrading
Thomas DeVere Wolsey
An upgrade, according to NetLingo[1], is, “To change a system or program to a newer version.” Newer does not mean better for the end user automatically, and Amazon is here to prove that an upgrade is not necessarily better with Amazon Music.
There are three flavors of Amazon Music that can be streamed or played through the Amazon Music[2] app. There is an ad-supported version that anyone can listen to for free with the app, and a version that is ad-free if you belong to Prime already called, you guessed it, Amazon Prime Music. Finally, there is a version with unlimited music for around 100 million songs including HD and spatial audio.
This is where the downgraded upgrade comes into play, so to speak. In November of last year, Amazon decided to make its catalog of around 100 million songs available to Amazon Prime Music[3] (the one you have already paid for with your Prime membership) instead of the previous 2 million. Yay, right? Hold off on those cheers, though. The additional music comes at a cost. In the earlier versions of Prime Music, users were able to download music they had purchased, download other music for offline listening in the app[4], and curate their own playlists[5]. That’s all gone or limited now, unless you…
