Why iTunes Free Single of the Week was Great

So, apparently iTunes has decided to end their Free "Single of the Week" thing. Which seems to have been going on for 11 years? That's a long time! And I have been following this for nearly 5 years. So yeah, I have an opinion on this.

Dear Apple.
This is stupid. Free singles is a great thing! And now you're just giving in to your free-music-hook competitor: Google Play! And let's be honest, Google is your competitor in more than just free music. Just google "Apple vs Google." I have a whole blog post worth of complaint about this! Just wait and read.

Sincerely,
Annoyed Sofia

Okaaay, so this is totally old news, because it stopped at the end of 2014. But I have a reason to still be grieving over it, and it has to do with the Tipping Point.

tip·ping point (noun)

the point at which a series of small changes or incidents becomes significant enough to cause a larger, more important change.

I'm talking about musical tipping points, specifically, artists who go from unknown to popular. Excluding the artists that have been commercially manufactured to be big (like One Direction's birth from The X Factor), a fair amount of artists that have been at the top of the billboard charts have crossed that tipping point of small to giant. While you can sometimes see that last point that took them over, you often don't notice all the previous changes/incidents that brought them there. And ya know what, Apple's Free Single of the Week was a very important indicator of an upcoming tipping point occurrence for a band, and while some bands had smaller tipping points, some of the them hit the jackpot. Because usually, the free singles were free because they weren't big yet, but iTunes thought they might be soon. Here's a few songs that iTunes gave us.

The A Team by Ed Sheeran

We Are Young by Fun.

Miss Me by Andy Grammer

Do You Love Me by Guster

All I Want by A Day to Remember

Around My Head by Cage The Elephant

Price Tag by Jessie J

Don't Sit Down 'Cause I've Moved Your Chair by Arctic Monkeys

Helena Beat by Foster The People

Don't Give Up On Me Know by Ben Harper

Not Just You by Cody Simpson

Shut Up Train by Little Big Town

Little Talks by Of Monsters and Men

Born To Die by Lana Del Ray

Feel So Close by Calvin Harris

Hold On by Alabama Shakes

Ho Hey by The Lumineers

Daddy by Emeli Sandé ft. Naughty Boy

Blood Brothers by Ingrid Michaelson

Amsterdam by Imagine Dragons

Clarity by Zedd ft. Foxes

Animal by Conor Maynard

The Mother We Share by CHVRCHES

Ribs by Lorde

Reflections by MisterWives

Riptide by Vance Joy

Budapest by George Ezra

Say My Name by ODESZA ft. Zyra

These are all songs I've gotten free off of iTunes. Less than 5 years worth of following it (iTunes had it for 11 years), but still, how many do you recognize? I know, some of them are not quite past their tipping point (esp. the last few), some were more like one hit wonders, and some had some major things happening before their free single that was making them big. They all very. But they were all a free single of the week, and they have all reached a noticeable level of success, I'm just saying..

Apple, you took away one of our tipping point indicators!!

Tell me, do you think I'm wrong about any of them? Know of any that I'm missing? Since I'm only seeing from my perspective, it was hard to choose or not choose some of the free singles for this list. I'm curious about all this. Too bad Apple put a stop to it.

See Ya!