Ars Technica reader jamieskella, contributing to Chris Foresman’s reader recommendation round-up for all those newly-gifted iPads out there:

How and why is Spotify still being recommended when Rdio (free) boasts 18 million songs and is available in so many regions globally? The supremely intuitive app experience leaves Spotify in the dust, the social features add to the already first-rate discovery options, while the method of cataloguing your favourite music is far superior.

Yup, it still pains me that so many people got hooked on Spotify via Facebook and never learned of Rdio’s obvious superiority.

People who prefer Spotify to Rdio either don’t know Rdio exists (Rdio’s problem) or are totally crazy (their problem).

What makes Rdio the better service:

• New release notifications for the music you love
• UI and UX don’t suck
• Web client is solid
• Album-focused approach instead of playlist-focused approach
• Remote control Rdio on one device from another

Galaxie 500 drummer Damon Krukowski¹, writing at Pitchfork:

Since we own our own recordings, by my calculation it would take songwriting royalties for roughly 312,000 plays on Pandora to earn us the profit of one— one— LP sale. (On Spotify, one LP is equivalent to 47,680 plays.)

I’m a happy user of Rdio, which is Spotify’s primary competitor. My fiancée and I pay $17.99 per month for Rdio’s unlimited streaming and downloading to our phones. At first glance, Mr. Krukowski’s article calls the morality of that set-up into question, particularly for someone who wishes he could make a living on his own music.

Some streaming subscribers probably buy more records than non-streamers as a result of discovering new musicians or getting so attached to a record that streaming it just isn’t enough. But Mr. Krukowski casts serious doubt on the idea that streaming can, in any way meaningful to artists, replace the CD/vinyl/iTunes mode of music distribution.