Over the next few days I’m going to write about some of the core trends that I’m seeing in people’s use of digital music, attempting to extrapolate from some current behaviours that we’re all observing around us - concentrating on how people wish to interact and use their music. I’m not going to spend too much time on the way some people may wish to legislate against these desires or build around them - because I believe for the most part that any attempt to do so will inevitably fail. Competing models that more adequately fulfil those needs will rise to take over in their place. […] I’ll be talking about four major areas that seem to me to be indicative of the unevenly-distributed musical functionality of the future - (1) portability and access, (2) navigation, (3) self-presentation and social uses of music and (4) data use and privacy.