This brough up some questions, some curiousity, some like "huh?". None of it is meant to be asshole-y and sorry if it did, but this petition didn't ring true, all told. Sorry if this sounds negative or aggressive. It's for clarity and perspective and nothing else.

OK - normalization as default setting on streaming services. Cool, easy. Got that, sounds right on. Lobby away for that.

That's an awful lot of rhetoric and content on the petition though, just to have streaming normalized - is that all you are playing for? Do you hope or imagine that normalization of streaming services will flush back into mastering practices? That is what it sounds like. I was having problems with the logical and practical aspects of what was being said in this sort of respect, especially when it got to the "artists intent":

But other creators feel forced to master too loud (over-compress), compromising their vision because more dynamic music would sound lower than the “competition.” They mix and master to the level of the loudest streamer, adding unwanted distortion, pumping and clipping. This situation intensifies the Loudness War in music production and discourages creators from producing programs which are dynamic, open-sounding and impactful

Poor them. This is a streaming service problem, is it? Of course it isn't. There are always those who discard good taste or fine craft for what they think will be a selling point. Ergo, loudness war.

So, er, yeah - is it about influencing (or even intervening) in mastering conventions/trends, at the studio, then? The quote above uses this word "forced" - this has nothing to do with anyone being "forced" to do anything, So, outside of streaming, how do you create and implement any sort of standard? By giving mastering engineers rules about limiting and output?

We know that two records could be mastered and bounced at the same output level and could sound drastically different in terms of perceived volumes. That's even before you open the can of worms that is the nature of the music, or the nuance of the mixes/techniques, going right back through the whole process of recording to the moment when a musician purchases their gear.

Further - if it is just about normalizing streaming services, is this basically a petition solely for people who a) use those services as their primary platform for listening and b) who are affected - specifically - during shuffled playback?

What sort of proportion of music listeners overall do you suppose that demographic is? I wager this - of those people, there will be either a) the ones informed enough to care, and who have either done something about it or not, or b) those uninformed enough to not care and just don't. Even then, I bet a HUGE proportion of streaming service users will be listening on e.g.laptop or tablet speakers, or through cheap or commercial ear/headphones, with their own EQ interventions, virtualization or other soundstage type effects. I bet 0% of this group have ever listened to a flat mix as the "artist intended".

So who is this mission really for? Like... what are you going to do about the way that my records, CDs and MP3s are mastered and differing in perceived volume? Rhetorical question, obviously - isn't it a fact of recorded ensemble music, and always has been, as is the story of the re-re-master and detractive stonewall limiting? I get why it could be addressed in streaming, but that is a matter of just lobbying particular services, and consumer education about normalization.

Seemed like you used that tiny issue to sort of vent your irritation about the culture of "bad" mastering, and rationalised it to make consumers and artists seem like victims of something that they aren't. Personally - I don't want my music homogenized, thanks - and that includes the way the records sound or pop. If the record has been committed the way, then it's how I'm having it. I then get to decide whether the perceived volume is appropriate to the context of the record/music.

If the petition is just about the settings on streaming services - an achievable task with about 2 or 3 steps of logic, surely - then here was my main problem: your petition isn't about music, it is about user experience of a service that is widely known to be disgustingly unfavourable to artists everywhere, from the ground up. Showing concern about the minutae of these services with that elephant in the room is a bit weak.

Truly - /r/lifehacks - "how to make all your MP3 music the same volume in streaming services and music players" would probably encapsulate it fully, and reach more people...