I consider the downloaded FLAC files as equivalent to ownership of a physical item. There's only so much shelf-space available...

Yeah, it lets them keep more of my money and having a flac is good enough for me. Its not like I'll ever actually play anything off a CD itself.

CDs suck. You are much better off buying the lossless digital version or paying more for vinyl. I say this as someone who cultivated a handsome CD collection years ago when Amazon used to sell classics for $5-8 brand new.

-- The jewel cases are flimsy, and just opening one too quickly can cause the hinge to snap.

-- Scratches and skipping. This has been a problem forever, and there's no solution.

-- Liner notes: I miss the times when bands would stuff in thick liner notes full of pictures, notes, trivia and lyrics. A lot of acts don't bother putting anything substantive in the notes. This is unfortunately true of vinyl as well, but at least vinyl artwork is large (12" x 12") and can be used as a decorative element in your home.

CDs are amazing. They sound much better then vinyl, take up much less space, can fit most records on one side (so no standing up mid record to turn it over). They are much more resistant to scratches then vinyl. Usually they are unaffected by them unless the scratches become really bad. And they are cheap, usually you can buy a used CD for $1-5 in your favorite record shop.

For me CDs serves the niche of wanting to quickly and easily listen to a record in superior quality. I guess I could get a digital audio player and add it to my audio setup and then upload the flac files to it, but that is a hassle I have yet to perform, it is much easier to just keep buying CDs.

A lot of songs were only available on iTunes, which is annoying if you're not an Apple user, you're forced to use its clunky app just to purchase song. I hope YouTube Music could offer song and album purchases to download later.