When I was at school, nearly 20 years ago (jeepers!) I was insanely proud of my collection of 200+ tapes and vinyls. All dreadful stuff. Boston. ELO. Trex. Aerosmith. Deep Purple. You get the idea.

After school, the collection swelled to 1,000 as I discovered Ben’s Collector Records (officially the world’s greatest music shop) in Guildford, and bought more inane middle of the road pop rock stuff. Rainbow. Genesis. Eagles. No need to labour the point…

As jobs paid better, the record collection mirrored the income and soon moving house became even more costly because of the volume of vinyl that had to be lugged.

With itunes my collection showed no sign of abating. In deed, with the instantaneous nature of digital, if I wanted it, I could get it, there and then. No journey to the shops, no waiting for the post for me. One click and 79p later and I had the track. By Christmas last year, I had 20,000 tracks on my mac mini and I was still insanely proud.

But since the appearance of Spotify my ambition to own every track I have ever desired has dissipated. Literally in the click of a mouse button, the longing to ‘own’ a piece of music is no longer there. I can count the number of tracks I have bought through itunes in 2009 on the fingers of one hand. Even the free weekly tracks are ignored. Spotify has killed my urge to actually own my record collection.

Spotify’s rule was always going to be limited by the availability of bandwidth to stream music tracks (for free, of course), but now that the Spotify app is available for WiFi access, the availability for free and limitless music you can take on the road is now a reality.

If itunes has been hurt by the appearance of Spotify, they are not saying. Apple, who own itunes, have supported (if not welcomed) the creation of the iphone app. However, I dont think I am alone in reducing, or even entirely stopping, my consumption of bought music in exchange for free streaming music, interrupted by adverts. (And don’t forget you can buy through Spotify now.)

Of course, Spotify are not out in the lead and cannot be touched. Their library is far from complete and prone to sudden artist removal. Artists come and go from Spotify’s ranks as quickly as music tastes. I noted that Bob Dylan vanished a few months back and has yet to appear. So they are, for now, at the mercy of the music industry’s might. But it cannot be doubted that they have had a spectacular first year or so and itunes must be eying them whilst nervously chewing their lip.