I am 41 years old. My hair has gone and my belly is growing. I used to be slim and have lots of hair, but one constant has remained throughout, my love of music.
When I was 21, a good proportion of my income was spent on music and I remember countless times when the excitement of a new album by a particularly artist would overcome me. It was genuinely exciting and if I had the money, I would have spent a lot more.
Over the past week I have been testing Spotify and after some consideration I decided that I wouldn’t spend £9.99 / month on the premium service. I could see the attraction of having access to millions of high quality tracks and the benefits of being able to play any tracks I liked on my iPhone even without a data connection.
It is a dream scenario for people who love music and offers something that I could only have dreamed of two decades ago. All of the music in the world for £10 a month!
Sadly, my commitments have changed and time is short these days so I have to pass, but I can’t help but wonder how happy I would have been if Spotify, Netflix and all of the other mobile services we enjoy today were available 20 years ago.
And then I look at my children and realise that today’s services are completely normal to them. Spotify is their equivalent to my trudging down to Our Price to buy a new CD. And one day they will want to be born twenty years later when their children get to do things they could only have dreamed of.
It is called progress and this is almost always a good thing. That doesn’t mean, however, that I wouldn’t want to turn back time now and again.
About Shaun McGill