Streaming services are ruining the easy gift

For lazy gift-givers, the latest evolution in digital content delivery is the most ominous yet. Like the Grinch disrupting Christmas for the denizens of Whoville, streaming media threatens to spoil the era of the easy present. [...] It's even worse with music. Top streaming services like Spotify boast such comprehensive collections that you'd be hard-pressed to find an album they don't have. Off the top of my head, I can think of the Beatles and, well, Taylor Swift. No doubt there are other holdouts, but they're the exceptions rather than the rule. No wonder U.S. album sales have plunged some 65 percent since 2000. Now even digital album sales on iTunes are plummeting. To buy an album for a Spotify subscriber is to invite the grimace of a gift recipient whose face can't hide the fact that she already owns the very thing you just gave her. - Will Oremus,Slate.com via Stars and Stripes [via/web:http://streaming-tv.us]