Just to clarify, I’m not saying that the social behaviour I talked about has vanished, just that it’s no longer a necessary part of the ‘contract’ between sharers.

A lot of social activity online encourages that kind of conversational behaviour - and widens it in ways I would have thought were absolutely amazing when I was 15 and looking desperately for people who’d even heard of the House Of Love (say).

There is now more conversation happening around music than ever before. Which is mostly such a great thing.

I just think the language around “sharing music” is kind of flawed, because it implies (to me) a sociality that isn’t always* there. Because there’s even more of the next level down of the pyramid, which is simply acquiring music, with no kind of reciprocity implied to artist or sharer.

I’m not, incidentally, trying to say that kind of activity is bad - just getting a clearer picture of the ecosystem we’ve got now.

*this “always” got missed out of the post originally, which made it look as if I was saying there’s never reciprocity. There totally is!