Flash is the Internet’s media file darling, isn’t it?
Except at Apple, no iPhone + Safari love for sites like these…
Flash has nice measurement/instrumentation baked in, if you choose to use it.

Are they protecting the user’s experience or raising the barrier to link to content?

If the former, they could supply a link to the playlist URLs _somewhere_ on the page.

If the backend is flash streaming and the content isn’t really accessible via non-flash player, then that’s another set of choices.

I miss WebJay’s ability to expose content URLs easily.

Unfortunately, the Adobe products are the biggest malware targets for exploitation because they are ubiquious. Exploits for Flash and Acrobat get big bucks on the black market these days. If alternative flash players step up, there is no guarantee that they will be any safer to use than the Adobe products, if they are protocol for protocol compatible.

It’s great to see sites working hard to update the music player experience, even by elliminating the stand-alone music player. It’s even better when the player is the web browser (and doesn’t have to run flash to do it).

Still a trend is a trend.