My whole music library is local and DRMless. I find CDs highly impractical in the age of cheap high-capacity storage. I would rip them anyway, as using normal copies is just far more convenient, after which they'd need to either waste space, be resold or be thrown out. If I were insistent on paying and there was no DRMless option, I'd rather buy a DRMed copy corresponding to the one I downloaded.

You pay for the catalogue and the recommendation feed.

...and the artists get peanuts.

I listen to a lot of music. like, a lot. and yet from my calculations the artist I've listened to the most during that year still didn't get even a dollar from my listens. and with how absolutely garbage the Spotify app has become, I've resorted to just archiving my entire collection online in lossless format and buying albums I particularly like on Bandcamp every now and then. it costs me less than an ongoing subscription because one purchase is just one or two month's worth of Spotify Premium, I get to keep the music even if the service goes down, I don't have podcasts that I don't want shoved in my face, and the artists I like actually get something from me.

You wouldn't be able to point me in the direction to learn about such things, would you?

This feels like trying to explain forests to someone who only wants to tell me about their favorite tree.

I get how the technology has changed. As an elder millennial, my entire life has been a constant shift of technology. From analog to digital, and back again- from betamax to DVDs, from 8 tracks to tapes to pocket rockers to mini discs to ipods. And including resurgences as people "discovered" the benefits of vinyl.

My point is that this new paradigm has shifted ownership of what we pay for away from consumers, to give gatekeeping power to corporate entities that can shut down, or shut off access, on a whim. And what's the ROI? Increasing access costs without ownership is just a more expensive lease.

I am simply arguing that physical media puts consumers in a greater position of control over the property they have paid for than streaming. And I am intimating that it's by design that technology "leaders" have moved away from allowing people to OWN what they buy.

1. Grab a few moles...
2. Axe a knife into their stones...
3. Twist the knife to get rid of those...
4. Remove the moleskin with a spoon...
5. 6, 7, 8, GUAC!!!

Funny how that works.

And I can download the songs, too.

A big middle finger to both of them.