My CD collection is around 30 years old. Spotify is currently $13/month. $13 times 30 years is $4680. A lot of people could cover most of what they listen to with that much budgeted to buying CDs... and I'd remind people that the relevant price isn't list price but what you actually pay. Fetching a Michael Jackson album out of a bargain bin for $1 is that album for a $1, whatever someone else somewhere else somewhen else might have paid. I also buy my own movies, and there's a lot of "$5 for the entire Lethal Weapon series collection" sorts of purchases in there.

You're probably objecting to the fact that you don't have 30 years, which is correct, but is also the point of the "long term" part of the comment. Someone who listens to stuff that is on the streaming services and is literally constantly switching between artists and who doesn't mind if some stuff disappears from the services sometimes and so on and so on is perfect for the streaming services, yes. However, the more of those clauses aren't true, the less obviously advantageous the streaming services are, and I don't think most people are sitting down every week and sampling a dozen brand new artists. A lot of people could, with just a bit of care to buy things frugally and used, build a CD collection with $14/month faster than they will want new music.

It can help to jump start a bit and not compare this to building a new collection from scratch. It also helps that such a jump started collection can start by buying the cheap stuff that fills out collections quickly.

On the plus side, the "cosmic jukebox" seems to have mostly worked out for music streaming and most stuff is available from most services, which is a huge point in favor of the music streaming services. In my opinion for movies and TV shows that can be legally acquired (putting aside piracy for the moment) the analysis tips much more heavily in the direction of just building your own collection. I don't even know what it would cost you to buy a month's worth of access to, let's say, 80% of my movie & TV collection (since I have stuff that is just plain not available on streaming at all). They're so fragmented it's insane. And with my rate of consumption of TV, oh, call it $50/month just for a nice round number, that's way more than I'm spending on building out the collection anyhow. Maybe if Hollywood would hire more writers who have taken and passed Writing 101 my consumption rate would increase, but that's not the current situation.

> and I'd remind people that the relevant price isn't list price but what you actually pay. Fetching a Michael Jackson album out of a bargain bin for $1 is that album for a $1,

If going to physical stores, sifting through bargain bins, accepting whatever nobody else wanted, spending the time to physically rip the CD, and hoping that second hand bargain disc wasn’t scratched is your idea of a good time then that’s great for you.

I will pay $4680 over 30 years of my life to not have to deal with that and to be able to listen to anything I want whenever I want without having to manage a library or streaming setup.

That honestly sounds like a bargain when I consider the time saved over 30 years!

Once your collection is built, thirty years down the line, you'll add less than five CDs per year. With streaming however, you'll end up paying a whole lot more than $5000 for the next 30 years, thanks to inflation. If you started this journey at 20 years old, you'll only be 80 after 60 years of streaming, but you might get to live until 110 and get to pay for yet another 30 years, which you may not be able to afford at that point in your life anymore.

There's also an interesting side effect of owning limited media that streaming advocates overlook.

When you own 3 albums, you'll listen to them more often. You will put more effort into memorizing them. You'll listen to the tracks that were not designed to be radio hits by a committee but were instead the songs the band came up with on their own.

You get way more out of your investment when you invest mentally and emotionally into the full spectrum of their music.

This guy is talking about finding 20 new bands a month. He's not getting anything out of it other than a mild dopamine hit, and he thinks he's somehow cool for that?

It's like being a connoisseur of children's cereal and never having home cooked steak and eggs for breakfast. It's like bragging about your weight loss journey because you started smoking crack.

"You'll listen to the tracks that were not designed to be radio hits by a committee but were instead the songs the band came up with on their own."

And amplifying that, we see more and more "built for streaming" music, which is not the sort of music I want to listen to. I have phrased that carefully; it is a personal opinion and I won't criticize anyone who discovers that actually, yes, generic AI rock that is pumped out by the hour is something they find some use for. I could see someone who wouldn't want to "listen" to that with intentionality finding it useful to code to or as background noise in their life or something. But it's not what I want, and unless the streaming services do something about it it is what is going to dominate their platforms over time.

I don't go in for super deep relationships with the musicians, reading about their histories and stuff, but I do enjoy the way that the music I like most on first listen often pales quickly and the tracks that I initially didn't like very well become my favorites.

Is that a good thing? One of the benefits to streaming for me is precisely that I don't want to get stuck being an old guy who just listens to music from when I was a teenager/young adult. 20 new bands per month is certainly excessive, but with the radio long-dead, how do you discover new music without some kind of streaming service?

Music stores still exist. Many of them have setups that let you listen to clips from new albums as well. You can also buy secondhand albums at thrift stores and pawn shops, or trade with others.

Friends might mention a band they enjoy, or you might hear a snippet on a video and look into it. Movie soundtracks occasionally have great music from well-established bands I've never heard of.

And you can go to live shows and check out local artists, buy their merch if they're any good.

Streaming is not the only way. Never has been, and never will be.

As far as your first question, is that a good thing, it's entirely subjective. But listening to a full album when you only "like" one song on it will expose you to new music, and might broaden your horizons or help you develop taste.

You have to actually look not just get spoon fed by the algorithm. Community is how you find music. Subreddits, forums, record stores. You find reviewers with similar tastes and see what they like. You search “bands like X” on the Internet. You keep up with artists you like and watch for new albums. It’s more active than just letting the algorithm feed you stuff but it works. Also radio still exists and public radio especially is still great for discovery.

Or if you’re ripping your CDs and listening via apps you can just scrobble and get algo recommendations still while owning your music and without a monthly fee.

to add some context from "the other side": last year, i listened to 2930 distinct albums of which 50% were albums I had not listened to before. Even on a 30 year timeframe and a good discount factor for album repetition I don't think I can fit into the budget you propose without making significant concessions in my discovery process.

Of those 2930 albums, how many can you write down from memory and to how many songs could you sing along? Getting flooded with too much information in a short time isn't necessarily a good thing for your brain. It hurts attention span and memory formation.

The calculation might look like you derive value, but it could also accidentally impact your brain negatively long term.

> I can start a new show and drop it 15 minutes in if I decide I don’t like it

IMO, that can also be a problem. When I was young and buying CDs, occasionally you would buy one you didn't like at first. But since you had spent money on it, you'd listen to it. And I discovered some good music that way.

Same thing with movies and tv shows. Sometimes it takes a bit to get going, or I 'm in the wrong mindset for it, but repeated viewing or just sticking with it gets me through that.

Try before you buy is what piracy is for. I would prefer if there was another venue to try before paying, but the industry hasn't figured this out in the past hundred years, so piracy it is.

Streaming could be an acceptable compromise if it was $10 a year for everything in existence, but the catalogues are splintered across multiple services and even when you combine them all there are plenty of things not available.

Try bandcamp (no really it's actually been improving over the years). Also there's still youtube for trying popular ones. Should cover "trying" almost all music legally afaik.

Youtube? (since this is about music)

There are a bunch of albums I found on Youtube that I ended up buying, yes. It's only a very small percentage of my collection, though and not generally how I discover new music.

I don't think that logic really holds but its pushed by spotify. People used to listen to a lot of varied music -- and theres a lot of ways to do that still without paying for spotify.

Anyways Spotify is just a platform/gatekeeper for record labels to push their products and theres no way that spotify prices ever become static. They will need to continue to push more products through the model to continue to grow and pay for company especially as all the other players have wizened up.

FWIW if you lapse in payment they kill all your downloaded content immediately. Super annoying service. I get why but like 10 days after probably about 10 years of subscription seems like a real jerk move. Even content that wasn't theirs and was mine -- they wiped it. You own nothing.

I don’t think you’re in the majority? 20 new bands a week is… I’ve met music lovers with hi-fi setups that maybe try 3 new albums a week! That’s really quite a lot.

If I enjoy an album, I’ll listen to it some 15-20 times before picking favourite songs or simply moving on. What you’re describing sounds more like consuming albums, not enjoying them. My 2 cents :)

> 20 new bands a week is… I’ve met music lovers with hi-fi setups that maybe try 3 new albums a week! That’s really quite a lot.

If you’re thinking albums and hi-fi setups, it would be a lot!

A valuable part of streaming services is the recommendation engine. Spotify generates a new playlist called Discover Weekly that has songs and bands loosely related to what I’ve been listening to. I turn it on while I do yardwork. If I like something I pause and add it to a playlist.

It also has options to continue playing related music when your playlist runs out. You can also enable a mode that mixes suggestions in between songs in your playlist to mix it up.

I’ve discovered a lot of new music this way. It’s probably great for small bands who have good music but lack a marketing budget to get it out there.