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Apple Music isn't the best streaming music service — it's just the least annoying
(www.androidpolice.com)
this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2023
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I buy DRM free music to own it
Neat, I don’t like any music enough to want a permanent copy of it.
I don't understand how it would be convenient at all to have your whole collection just online, restricted to a single proprietary site/app. I do use musical streaming, but it's for discovering new tracks. All the actual listening happens locally on my computer and player. I cannot afford to actually buy the music, but if I did, I probably would pay for the albums I listen to the most, not the whole library.
I buy around $10-$20 a month. Not much but it adds up my collection fairly quickly
I listen to music and podcasts all day, like minimum of 4-5 hours a day. No way I could afford to do that if I was paying per item and not for the service.
My podcasts are free RSS feeds. As for music - you not only pay, but are restricted in what you can do with your music, not to mention stuff from your collection can just disappear. So as I said, if I was dead set on paying, I would rather pay for one album at a time and pirate the rest, maybe pay for what I have downloaded later.
But what can you do with your music that I cant? I can listen to ten albums tomorrow but I can't buy ten.
The point is Spotify may remove your favourite album and then you can access it. It's a stupid point though because if their hard drive breaks or they otherwise lose access to the file they have to return to whoever they bought the music from and hope they can still download it.
It's like how people point out that when you buy games from steam you don't actually own the game. Well, yeah no shit, if steam shuts down I can't download the game anymore, steam is about convenience not ownership.
There is nothing wrong with talking about the benefits of possessing digital files that cannot be taken away from you, it's just completely irrelevant to a conversation about streaming services. They are two separate products with their own advantages and disadvantages.
Proper backups are your responsibility anyway.
Also I do use streaming - for discovery of new tracks. I was talking about a) paying for this service only to be restricted more than if you didn't; and b) people who have their WHOLE collection depend on a streaming service.
I can use whatever player I want, I can use whatever device I want (like an mp3 player, now I drag a smartphone around until I find a replacement one and it's super inconvenient, can't imagine doing it all the time), I can not depend on an Internet connection for any amount of time, I can not worry about the service retroactively removing features/adding ads/etc, I can still have my music if I end up unable to pay for streaming (not like I am paying right now)...
For a price of a subscription, I could buy an album a month, for example, and download the rest. And maybe pay for some of the downloaded ones later. Same money, more worth out of it.
Good for you. I buy/torrent music sometimes too. Streaming is popular because it's convenient and the convenience is more valuable to many people than the benefits of "owning DRM free music".
Your comment is entirely pointless and pretty fucking pretentious.
I’ll admit it sounded a little showy to me too, but a lot of the nicher things with their own benefits sound pretentious when just being said in plain wording. I like fountain pens because they’re pleasant to write with but are more expensive and less convenient. Always sounds pretentious just saying I like them and why if I don’t throw in the caveats like I did here.
There’s the chance he is trying to, of course. I try to assume the best these days for my own sake though
I don't think his post is meant to be hostile. It's not pointless, but it would add more of a discussion to elaborate on the topic.
On the topic of choosing to own (download (without DRM)) your music, one of the benefits is that it allows you to have all your music available in whichever music player (app/program/streaming service) you like. You can access the music while offline, without being required to pay some subscription fee. If downloading, it's generally also very easy to switch between different players if you so desire to in the future. You can control the metadata (swap album art, edit track info, etc.) You can sometimes even use owned media in tandem with streaming services to put all your media in one place within a streaming service's app/program. Usually, doing this requires less purchases/downloads to get all your media in one place, but still requires a sub.
On the topic of using Apple Music as a player.. I'm not sure if it's still this way, but you needed to use iTunes (on a PC!) to import local MP3 files to Apple Music, which, iTunes, love it or hate it, requires you to not only own a PC, but it has its limitations such as FLAC files being unsupported... That being said, Apple Music does provide a great convenience for many people and it's often cheaper than legally purchasing all of your songs. You can even add your downloaded songs from a PC (but not locally from an android device for some reason??)
I prefer to own my music. For anyone who likes the idea but doesn't know where to start, I can give some recommendations for convenience.
For music acquisition, use a legal website like Bandcamp to purchase your music, most of the money goes to Artists, compared to some other platforms. Alternatively you could pirate.. (illegal! I don't care if you pirate, but I'm not gonna write a tutorial.)
If you want to sync owned/downloaded files, use: SyncThing - free software that lets you automatically mirror file directories between your devices, syncing your libraries with no fees required. Available on Android/Win/Linux/Mac
For players, I recommend:
Android:
PowerAmp - trial & one time purchase, has theming support, massive customization options
Oto Music - lite version or one time purchase, supports downloading & embedding lyrics
PC:
MusicBee - free, has theming support, allows loading network files (local or remote)
Plenty of players available for different functional needs and/or aesthetics, but these are what I currently use.
On a thread discussing the various streaming options all of this information is entirely irrelevant. Managing a digital library is not appealing to 99% of people.
You may as well tell people to cook their own food in a thread discussing the various food delivery options.
I wouldn't say that's true. Probably 99% of people who use a streaming service still manage their library on that platform in some capacity (playlists, etc.)
Now if you're talking about "owning and managing your entire library" then yeah, I'd say most people probably don't care or are too lazy to bother with it. (and I don't mean that as an insult)
Still, for people who like or listen to music that isn't included in their primary music streaming service's library, owning portions of their library will often give them the capacity to mix in the rest of their music to their platform of choice. I wouldn't say that's irrelevant when talking about streaming services. Sadly, Apple makes this process more difficult than it needs to be.
Well put. I typically use 7digital and sometimes HDTracks. Bandcamp confused me but I need to give it another go.
Purchasing music also gives a much higher percentage of money to the artist compared to streaming platforms.
Retro Music is my favorite player for Android and Elisa for Linux (maybe Windows too).
I looked into that as I listened to my playlist most of the time. And then I realize nano.RIPE after 10 years still unable to be purchased outside iTunes Japan or Japanese speaking websites.
You realized what? I don't understand
Uhmm it's pretty clear to me.
He says that after 10 years "nano.RIPE" music still cannot be purchased outside Japan.
I guess his point is that sadly that is not always a solution (outside piracy) as sometimes you cannot actually buy certain music, but I am guessing is actually available to be played on the streaming subscription service.
Oh, "nano.RIPE" is a name. I thought it was a spelling mistake.
Same
I didn't know what nano.RIPE was and still don't really (maybe a musician or store), but I understand enough to know what he's saying now. I know not all music is available but quite a bit is (this was surprising to me). Maybe the outlying songs are left to pirating. That's a personal predicament.
This is the way