iTunes Has Slowly Destroyed My Will to Collect Music

As a guy who grew up with Mac until playing catch-up with Win95 (and some DOS to fit in), being familiar with digital storage techniques has formed over time. I get the concept of certain files being certain places - system files versus personal files versus program resources. This kind of structuring appeals to me.

Thus, rather than totally embrace the "OS as Helper" technique that Windows likes (put everything in "Music") or going the iTunes route (behemoth management program with hooks to other stuff), I maintained some of my fencing habits. Sure, I use the "Music" folder but that's only for purchased music. In a separate folder - which makes things easier to back-up I think - I have my "Music Projects" folder.

In my workflow I've got my DAW projects and output separate from what I'd consider the 'commercial music' area, and this might have saved a lot of stress that Pinkstone went through. Maybe not, but my hunch is it might have helped. iTunes can't touch what it can't see, and letting it anywhere near a collection of bootlegs and/or "less than legal" origin files is something I would avoid out of general suspiciousness. That applies to original works that don't fit any standard cataloging function either; I don't think that would help me.

Personally I'm still satisfied with Winamp, a couple skins and visualization things (it does help me ID3 tag my music as well), and honestly can't recall if I've ever installed iTunes in the past 10 years. I genuinely don't think so, and while my own process has flaws and issues (overlap of versions, DAW files are big, etc) there's some protection I kind of like in a way.

I've spent most of the last five years hoping Apple are re-writing the thing from scratch, and have been neglecting any meaningful updates to the current fork in the meantime, but I'm losing hope.