Most people I know listen to music by streaming it, either on their phone or on an internet-connected speaker. Smartphone music apps evolved from mp3 players like the iPod, and modern streaming became possible when wireless networks got fast enough to move all the bytes needed for on-demand music selection and listening possible in most places most of the time.

The business side of streaming services evolved from stores like the iTunes store - which Apple built in a hurry to solve the Napster problem. There was briefly no legitimate way to get MP3s that was remotely as convenient as piracy. Now that music streaming services exist, we have immediate access to nearly all commercially-released music. We can listen to all kinds of recordings within seconds of thinking about them. People dreamed of this in the 90s, and it finally happened.

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In 2003, I was 19 years old, and on the verge of completing something. I didn’t know it yet. I didn’t realize I had a project at all.

What was this project? Well, I was trying to listen to music I liked, as much as possible. I was getting it pretty well figured out through trial and error triangulation - do I like this? How far off is it? Do they have anything else? By 2004, I’d gotten as close as I could get. I had hit diminishing returns, and I stagnated for a while, and then I changed.

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