Australia is entering a golden age of all-you-can-eat streaming music.

Who needs pirate radio with a music library at your fingertips?

Twelve months ago things looked pretty grim on the subscription music front. Australians looked on with envy at impressive foreign services such as Rhapsody, which they could only access using trickery such as VPNs and US credit cards. Yet as we enter 2012 we’re awash with subscription music services, and there are more on the way.

If you’re keen for a taste of a local subscription music service, your options include Rdio, JB HiFi Now, Zune Pass, Songl (formerly Anubis.fm) and Music Unlimited (formerly Qriocity). Several more will be launched in the next few months.

Many work with the impressive Sonos Digital Music System, designed to stream music around your home. Some work with smartphones and tablets, plus you’ve got others targeted at specific mobile devices, from the likes of Samsung and BlackBerry. Along with all of these you’ve got Apple’s iTunes Match, although it only lets you listen to songs you already own.

Subscription music services put millions of songs in your pocket, but the trade-off is that you don’t “own” them. To be honest I doubt this will deter most people, nor will the MP3-esque sound quality. These days convenience and flexibility are what most people are chasing. I don’t think people will stop buying music immediately, at first they’ll use subscription services to flesh out their back catalogue and try new music before they buy.

Eventually the concept of “owning” content will seem irrelevant, but it might well take a generational change. As fixed and mobile broadband gets faster and cheaper, the music listeners of tomorrow will expect an entire music library at their fingertips.