The reason this "audiophool" uses FLAC is because I want my music collection to be stored at the same quality it was when I paid for it; and FLAC is more conservative with storage than PCM.
I don't stream it; and I don't use it on a phone. If I ever need to do those things, I can convert from FLAC to lossy, knowing that I'm starting with something that is as accurate I can get.
That is, I'm implicitly using FLAC as an archive format. Gzipped PCM would work, except that I can't play that directly in a music player. I don't care about a bit-flip rendering a FLAC unplayable; my collection is backed-up.
Basically, I'm not going to pay for a CD full of bits, and then immediately throw away a lot of those bits.
I don't stream it; and I don't use it on a phone. If I ever need to do those things, I can convert from FLAC to lossy, knowing that I'm starting with something that is as accurate I can get.
That is, I'm implicitly using FLAC as an archive format. Gzipped PCM would work, except that I can't play that directly in a music player. I don't care about a bit-flip rendering a FLAC unplayable; my collection is backed-up.
Basically, I'm not going to pay for a CD full of bits, and then immediately throw away a lot of those bits.