Memes

I still download my music. Two pros: I have control over where, when and how I listen to it. And I only download music I actually want to listen to.

One con: Finding new music is harder (I imagine).

You idiots don’t have a 6 cd changer in your car? Pathetic!

A couple of years ago, I had a Napster subscription (the reborn, legal variant of it). At first, I was happy to have unlimited access to music, then after 2 years I realised that I was paying 120 EUR a year for music I'll never own, so I cancelled the subscription and put my yearly budget for music to exactly that amount. It yields more than enough given I buy used CDs, and then digitalise them. That way I own the physical media as backup AND am able to transfer the digital, PCM-quality tracks unfettered across my devices AND with no need for DRM or shitty proprietary applications.

This would be right if not for the fact that Spotify will regularly introduce you to music that you might like and otherwise might not have heard of. That can be worth paying for.

...are people really paying for a music subscription service to listen to the same music on repeat? I pay a service because I listen to like at least 4 new albums every week, minimum.

Man, Spotify were the ones who did it. Like they made the service so significantly better and more convenient than pirating that most of those pirating actually switched.

Not a fan of the platform anymore since the heavy push for sponsored content, removal of audiobooks and the whole Joe Rogan thing, but still credit where it's due.

I only play songs once on Spotify, if you catch my drift.

I did return to my old flac and mp3 collection. Got Foobar working again, found a nice skin and I'm rediscovering music that I that skipped over. I buy second-hand CDs when I find them. I've managed to get a digital copy of all my favourite albums and tracks.

I will keep Spotify though. A long time ago, I got friends to share their Discovery and Release Radar playlists. With my own, I have a nice spread of recommendations.

I need regular new music. Call it a search for unexpected dopamine. Spotify still picks new tracks that I really like. I also like Spotify Connect and the easily shared collaborative playlists.

The UK has less alternatives for music discovery. I don't like Radio, way too much talking and ads.

I've got rid of Netflix, Prime. I'm getting Disney+ for free at the moment. Back to physical for film and TV.

For now, Spotify recommendations is worth the cost of entry.

I mean… you own or have nothing when your Wow sub ends also.

I washed my clown makeup off with a home server

Just the albums on my favorites list in Qobuz would have been around $10,000 USD to purchase in hi-res.

*laughs in physical media*

I pay for the discovery features. Then I get my music locally.

I am very happy with Navidrome for over a year now. It also reminds me how I listened to whole albums when I was a teenager, what I now started doing again.

Okay, but I can access my full library from anywhere at full quality from multiple devices, I have several 5,000 plus song playlists with little to no overlap between a few of them and I have had CDs lost or stolen and had drive failures delete digital libraries. But sure.

This is why I download all the music I want. I still listen to it primarily on youtube, but it is a 'just in case'. I also never paid for music.

I usually have to listen to a song several times before it fully "clicks" if I like it or not, so music streaming subscription is great for being able to grab any song I think I might like and throw it in trial playlist. Back when I bought/acquired music, I would skip over most music I might like because the effort wasn't worth it for a song I wasn't sure if I liked or not. So streaming has worked really well for me for music discovery at least.

On the bright side, I'm still getting my $8 a month early adopter price for Google music all access (now YouTube music).

Go to concerts, buy physical.

I think the young generation has seen the pattern of clowns generations above them, either relying on ad-radio or Spotify, and have turned to piracy or physical media for this. My BIL recently got into buying CDs from goodwill as a good example. YT video essay I lived through the consumer generation of physical hoarding so Spotifydl is fine for me.

You can just rip it off Spotify.

The internet is over, you guys. We can finally switch off our devices and take a good nap.

For some reason pirating music libraries is really hard. Probably bc everyone uses Spotify