What My Obsession with Voice-Enabled Music Players Says about the Future of Tech

Am I going insane? In the past three months I’ve done the following:

• bought an Amazon Echo Dot
• bought a Google Home
• started an Amazon Music Unlimited trial
• started a Google YouTube Red trial
• started a Spotify Premium trial
• purchased a DKnight MagicBox II Bluetooth speaker
• returned the DKnight
• bought a DOSS SoundBox Bluetooth speaker
• returned the DOSS
• started an Amazon Music Unlimited (for Echo) trial
• continued my subscription to Spotify
• canceled my subscription to Spotify
• sold my old Bose SoundLink Bluetooth speaker
• bought an Anker Premium Bluetooth speaker
• re-purchased a DOSS Bluetooth Speaker and upgraded its firmware
• returned the DOSS
• sold the Google Home

I just want to walk into my apartment and say, “Ok Google,” “Alexa,” or “Hey Siri,” and have it take whatever song is in my head and put it in my speakers. This is what I currently have in my car. When I turn on my car, my Kinivo Bluetooth receiver automatically connects to my iPhone. I then place my iPhone on a magnetic holder, and then Siri plays whatever I want. “Hey Siri, play Fleetwood Mac,” “Hey Siri, play Journey.” It works almost every time, and every time it works, it’s magic. When it works in a social setting, it’s transcendent. I was driving some friends to the gas station to buy cigars, and I said, “Hey Siri, play ‘Have a Cigar’ by Pink Floyd.” At first, everybody was like, “Whoa.” But then, everybody started singing.

I was seeking the same magic in my living room, which worked for a month because I had trials to YouTube Red and Amazon Music Unlimited for my Google Home and Echo Dot. One time, I was entertaining a lady and said, “OK Google, play the Westworld soundtrack,” and then my guest overrode me and said, “OK Google, play Philip Glass,” and then we had sex to Philip Glass. (It helped that Google didn’t play “Koyaanisqatsi” which has some mood-killing vocals.)

That was all good until the music trials ended, and I realized I couldn’t afford two music subscriptions. The music from Siri on my iPhone was coming from Apple Music, which is $11/mo. ($130/yr.). Apple Music doesn’t work on any of the other voice assistants, so an extra music service would be an extra $130/yr., just to add one extra magic channel to my living room.

Initially, I found the solution in the form of using Amazon’s Prime Music, which comes with Prime — a necessity nowadays — but that only covers broad requests, such as “Alexa, play 80s songs” or “Alexa, play songs from so-and-so well-known artist.” I found that with just Prime Music, I lose the magic of walking into my room and asking the system to play whatever is in my head. That and the Echo Dot sounds like a tin can, which is why I kept buying Bluetooth speakers. The reason I bought so many, is that I wanted great sound at a reasonable price plus one critical feature, they stayed connected all the time.

The lengths and configurations I have gone through to save money while obtaining maximum music magic are insane. I believe this is potentially the downside to my quest to controlling my spending. When I’m abstaining from purchasing something not because I can’t afford it, but because I’m trying to hit financial goals, there is no external force to support fiscal discipline. There will always be a gray area. My interest in obtaining magic music for my living room is just under its cost. $130/year.* for a secondary music service? Get out of here! On the other hand, I crave it. I’ve become the cliché bachelor with disposable income who obsesses over music. Typically someone in my situation manifests this obsession into a focus on high-fidelity sound (a friend once told me that after a month of research he settled on $400 headphones). Instead, my obsession is towards a hi-fidelity connection between the songs stuck in my head and the speakers around me.

I could continue waxing poetic about the empty struggle of a budget-conscious audiophile, but I started writing this essay to extrapolate my findings towards insight about the tech industry. The convergence of software, hardware, and media is here, and in today’s post-mobile world, the end-points matter. The fact that Spotify can’t be summoned from my iPhone via voice is a deal-breaker. The fact that there aren’t great apps for YouTube Red is a deal-breaker. I’m ever so tempted to switch to an Android Phone because it would unlock Spotify-by-voice, which would then allow me to have Spotify on my Google Home, which at $118 is the sweet spot on price and quality, which would also allow me to ditch iTunes on my Mac which is awful.

In 2015, futurist Ben Thompson cited Apple Music as an example of Apple losing focus, but two years later Apple has a hold on me, thanks to Apple Music. I’m even tempted to get the HomePod ($380) which I could justify as an investment: pay once for an lasting, epic device that offsets the need for a supplementary music subscription. But then I’d get even more locked into Apple, which I forgot to mention also provides a magical music gateway through the Apple Watch. So the multi-billion dollar tech question is, is it better to be like Apple, with a closed, but integrated, solution that has limited options for budget-conscious buyers? Or is it better to be Spotify who is open, but doesn’t control the end-points, and is therefore limited to customers who have smaller needs for their music? We’re in uncharted territory here, because everything I just described is a superfluous need, much like the “need” for AirPods, but then again, superfluous needs are where all the room for economic growth lies.

*I could pay $52/yr. for Amazon Music Unlimited (for Echo), but I’m trying to cut back on subscriptions. Plus, I’d want to upgrade my Echo past the Amazon Tap, which still sounds like garbage, and then purchase the taller Amazon Echo ($152).