ericesque

Sure, Zune had long since been panned by consumer electronics blogs, but gen 3 hardware was legit.  The desktop software would still hold up against Spotify and Apple Music in terms of usability and vastly outclasses either in style.  The music exploration and recommendations were excellent.  I still miss the playback visualizations.  They had social features baked in and had a web music player that was a first class citizen in their ecosystem. You could cast music between devices before the word “casting” had been coined.  Zune Pass gave you access to unlimited streaming of 14 million tracks and let you keep 10 each month.  While Apple was raising digital downloads to $1.29/track, Microsoft was offering discounted annual subscriptions at $149.  It was the equivalent of buying 10 songs on iTunes each month plus $1.75/mo for unlimited streaming.

Zune lost the battle of mind share, but 13 years later I’m still waiting for someone to step up and revive the golden age of streaming music.