I subscribed to KKBox because neither Google Music nor Spotify were available in Taiwan. But, also, it was a part of last year’s proprietary software experiment. It has been almost six months and the conclusion I’ve come to is even more damning than the general failure of other proprietary apps.
Streaming music services are walled gardens.
Yeah, it seems obvious in hindsight. Or maybe with just a little thought applied. But here are some of the failures I’ve experienced:
1. Buggy client with no alternatives.
2. Client doesn’t play well with others. (So, no scrobbling to my last.fm)
3. Discouraged from sharing music. Cannot make and host my own mixtapes, or even easily link friends to a song. (Unless, of course, they pay for KKBox, et al.)
4. Central servers going offline means “your” music is offline.
So, no, I won’t be renewing. I’ve been down this garden path before.