Recently I downloaded iTunes again because I’m trying to consolidate my music library/listening history from all my old services and get them on Jellyfin.

And…I’d honestly forgotten how legitimately good a piece of software iTunes is. Not perfect, obviously, but I’d forgotten what it was like to have sophisticated music management tools. Just the sheer amount of options and tools to sort and manage the list, to be able to edit the properties, etc.

Then you look at modern streaming apps and it’s all just…terrible. The user is completely neutered. You can’t do even half as much with them. Things are just straight up hidden or don’t exist anymore, you have very few methods of controlling how things are organized or sorted, etc.

“Modern” design principles seem to be “you can just deal with using the app the way we think you should, we won’t give you the ability to make it your own”.

That’s what made Google Play Music so good: it was that beautiful sweet spot between the useful tool of iTunes-esc music management and the convenience of the streaming services. I didn’t feel like my hands were tied when using it like I do with Spotify.