Seriously, arguing over these analogies is like arguing between buying books and a for-profit (albeit digital) library. It says more about the comment that brought up the comparison (in the way that it did, as if they are mutually exclusive) than it does about the two services.
Like you said, it depends on your habits, but there’s no point in arguing, or denying, that Netflix or Spotify do not offer anything more than VLC or WinAmp respectively.
What no one has mentioned is that VLC and WinAmp offer features that the others lack. Somewhere in those features is an argument against vendor lock-in, but that trade-off of features is exactly what revolutionized how most users consume content by default, so I don’t think it’s a very good one.
I recently started buying music again for a few different reasons, but I’ll be damned if I lose the discoverability in Spotify.
That's any kind of music that everyone already listens to and anywhere where you have internet connection.
Spotify is the new radio.
Spotify also lets you stream any kind of music, anywhere. It's a nifty feature that some people find useful.