Want to Enjoy Music More? Stop Streaming It

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/19/magazine/music-not-streaming.html

by cdme • 3 years ago

28 8 3 years ago

nytimes.com

artninja1988• 3 years ago

Just pirate your collection

iamdamian• 3 years ago

I started building my MP3 music collection again recently and have been very happy with the decision.

Not only do I have a collection of music that will be there forever, but I can play it on any device I want (and with any software), and I feel a sense of pride in building up a collection that is unique to me.

I gladly pay Apple $1.29 for my music. I give them major kudos for maintaining a mainstream DRM-free store with a range of high quality music—also for not increasing prices over the past decade or more.

vjulian• 3 years ago

I don’t follow. I came of age in the era of records, cassettes and the waning 8-track (and emerging CD). I have Apple Music and, equally importantly, Apple Classical. I star what I want, download some for offline listening, and discover new music through stations, playlists and Shazam. It’s brilliant (though I miss tremendously the liner notes that came with albums). I haven’t the foggiest why I should enjoy music more if were to stop streaming it.

grawlinson• 3 years ago

Apple (and other streaming services) have been caught out replacing people’s local songs with censored/blessed versions. That is the main reason why some characters will not stream music; because they do not have full control over their own files.

slau• 3 years ago

Disclaimer: I didn’t read the article.

Why is streaming mutually exclusive with owning local copies? My girlfriend has Spotify, I have Apple Music. We also have an extensive FLAC collection of our “forever artists”.

Arainach• 3 years ago

I disagree with this. I own approximately 800 CDs and more albums purchased digitally through Amazon etc. I have a music library large enough that I could play it 24/7 for months and not hear the same thing twice.

And yet.....streaming is wonderful. Yes, I can play the same album of Beethoven or ELO or Radiohead or whatever and enjoy it or even discover new things about it, but streaming is wonderful at discovering new artists.

Through Spotify and later YouTube Music, I have found artists both new and old who I had not listened to before and who brought me joy and appreciation of music.

Streaming is also perfect for recommendations. If a friend tells me "you should check out Save Ferris" I don't have to spend $10+ or drive to the library, I can play their discography immediately.

I have not found a private solution for generating playlists across my library. If I don't want to listen to an album straight through, I am stuck manually curating. I have a home server running Plex to access to my library, but all of Plex's generated playlists / radio features are garbage compared to streaming services.

It's also just not cost efficient. I built the bulk of my library during the rise of streaming when Amazon and other stores were selling albums for $5 or less to make space in warehouses. Those days are gone. 800 albums at $3 apiece average is $2400, which is a LOT of months of a streaming service.

ramon156• 3 years ago

If you haven't used a platform for more than 72 hrs, how can you say that you don't enjoy it? I got dozens of artists from my Discover Weekly that normally I'd never see

kashunstva• 3 years ago

https://archive.ph/Mp0fT

Want to Enjoy Music More? Stop Streaming It

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