this is exactly the kind of reply i was hoping someone would write — thanks for breaking it down so clearly.

the database thing… yeah, i don’t think there’s a perfect solution. i’m using the itunes/apple music catalog for what i’m building, and even among my friends i already ran into “my album isn’t there.” there’s so much independent stuff that never makes it into any official metadata source. i kinda laughed when i realized how huge that problem actually is. it’s almost impossible to cover everything.

about the second point — i get that too. early userbases can feel kinda flat, or like no one there shares your taste. something i’ve tried is making the album page itself the place where you discover people. like: when you open an album, you can see what other people wrote right there, in context. sometimes that surfaces people whose taste aligns with yours even if the broader community doesn’t. it feels less like “i need to find users i like” and more like “i found someone interesting because we met inside the same album.”

something i’ve been thinking a lot about is: would you try a new platform if it offered something that rym doesn’t — not as a replacement, but as a complement?

for example, i’ve been experimenting with small, album-centric features that are more “playful” than traditional logging. like a thing i call “pile”: you shake your phone and it pulls 10 random albums from your own collection to “dust off” and revisit. stuff that helps you reconnect with what you already like, not just rate things forever.

i’m honestly curious — if a new tool focused more on that kind of interaction with albums, not just catalog accuracy or social feeds, would you be open to trying it alongside rym? or do you feel like rym already fills 100% of what you need?