One of the nice features of Amazon Prime is having access to free streaming music. It used to be an awesome perk, but has become less and less so as time has passed.
It started out with some songs not being available unless one subscribed to Amazon Music Unlimited.
Fair enough.
Then came the full screen free trial offer on the app. Every time I opened the app. Occasionally would have been okay, but every time? Hugely annoying.
Still, I didn't use the app that often. I mostly play it when I'm in the gym working out. For the commute home, I have podcasts that I listen to. There are rare occasions when I listen at home, but they're very rare. That means subscribing to any streaming music service is not cost effective for me.
Lately, though, in it's quest to drive people to their paid service, the app has a new trick. Instead of playing the song I selected in one of my playlists or on search, it will play something else instead. Only Unlimited subscribers get to choose what song they listen to.
This is extremely irritating to me.
If I want to listen to one song and one song only, I shouldn't have to listen to something I'm not interested in. What good is this as a Prime perk if it stops being a perk and starts being an annoyance?
I have several work arounds. The first? I own a lot of music. I stream it on the Amazon Music app because it's easier, but I have access to my music collection through my cloud storage. I usually already have the music available that I want to listen to, it just takes a few more clicks.
My second work around? I buy the song. Once you purchase it, you can listen to it whenever you want on the app.
Sure, I'll end up with music I might not listen to five years from now, but hey, I grew up in the era when you were forced to buy an entire CD to get one song. I'm used to this.
