Considering it's a paid service, Match seems to not work rather often.

My iTunes Library is on a external USB3 SSD, only occasionally connected to my MacBook Pro.

That's why I pay Apple extra $$$ – so I can listen to my music even without the disk being attached.

Last time I added music to my collection is months back.

Still, about every week or so iTunes / Apple / Match / whoever finds it necessary to upload my library information to Apple, and then wait sometimes for hours for the Match results to come back drop by small drop from Apple's servers.

During this time, obviously listening to music is impossibe. It could somehow not be Matched, or some other unspeakably sinful thing, and thus – no playback.

Oh, this music was added about 3 years back, has been matched hundreds of times already, and played dozens of times? Well, we don't care, do we, all we care about here is proper protocol, son.

I used to belittle Spotify, but now I'm within a hair's breadth of buying into it. Apple's Match seems overpriced rubbish in its current form.