No Stupid Questions

I'm old. I have this one in my drawer. At some point I might start using it again and leave phone at home.

I don't get it either. I have a couple of friends who pay for music streaming just to listen for the SAME music over and over. They don't even make use of those so called recommendation algorithms or so. I tried to guide them into putting the music they like into their phones for offline listening, but they ignored me. I guess some people just have some sort of love for corporations.

I prefer mine broiled.

But I've also never paid for a music service.

In order of preference:

1. buy flac directly from the label
2. buy flac on Bandcamp (or equivalent, although i'm barely aware of any real alternatives)
3. buy CD and rip it to flac
4. despair
5. try to fight it
6. give up and get it via torrent.

~~Streaming services are evil and i wish for them to fail.~~ ...but more seriously -- I get why streaming services exist. Although I will almost certainly will never use one in my life, in principle it's fine, I get the point. When I'm online I'm actually OK to stream from an indie radio (eg. soma.fm) or from a RSS based podcast player (eg. Antenna).

The problem i have is that, AFAIK, the business models are almost always abusive and hostile to both user and the artist. Some kind of federated system could work better, but I'm not sure it's doable. As it is, I'm afraid this middle man model just won't ever work properly without heavy regulation -- which is kind of a problem in the globalized world.

I still rip music to MP3s.

I'm just gonna paste a response I had to another similar post a while back:

Not who you asked, but I can tell you where I’m at with that. My primary listening is on an mp3 player, and I also use a home server for listening on speakers/tv. Switching to a separate device used only for music has made my listening far more deliberate. When I pick up the player, I’m making a point to listen to music, not just have it on in the background like I used to. It’s also a pain in the ass (comparitively) to make playlists on it (I purposely chose a scroll-wheel style and no touch screen) so I’m listening to a lot of full albums now, which I never really did before, exposing me to a lot more than I used to since I don’t just throw the song or two I like on a playlist and leave the rest.

There’s been an interesting side effect that I didn’t expect: Being more deliberate with my listening has sharpened my ear to music, I hear music in movies and shows in a way I never used to, I’m beginning to recognize voices and band styles by ear, I actually focus on music now instead of it just being part of the background. As such, I find a lot of new music these days by looking up songs from movies and tv. For example, the most recent:

• I completely devoured the Sinners soundtrack. (Ludwig Göransson is a fave and I’ve always been a fan of Buddy Guy)

• Watching Dope Thief, I realized I never skipped the intro. Got me hooked on Little Simz

• James Gunn has some great taste. Beyond season 1 of Peacemaker, Season 2 has already got me absolutely loving Foxy Shazam, and after the latest ep I’ve been getting into Hardcore Superstar.

• Strangely enough, Rick and Morty has some bangers in the later seasons, and got me listening to stuff I never would have like Kishi Bashi.

Additionally, there’s the news. I’ve been listening to Bob Vylan and Kneecap, and only heard of them because they stood up to support Palestinians.

Not only has my listening become more deliberate, but my sourcing of new music has as well. No longer relying on an algorithm to do the work for me has allowed me to hone a new skill and learn how to find new music myself.

Streaming music never appealed to me. 1TB sd card in my phone with my library synced to it.

You call them "steamed jams" despite the fact you are obviously not billed?

500gb mp3 drive i have never streamed shit.

I stream my music files from my personal server. I also use an mp3 player when I know I'll be offline for an extended period.

I "acquire" my music as flac files, and usually listen to them on my iPod.

No, I am frying my music. It gives the sound a crispier edge.

I canceled spotify 2 yrs ago and switched to qobuz, music collection of 1500 songs. Some bought digitally, most ripped from cds. Happy as a clam!

Yeah no. Vinyl for the win. They steam well too. Makes nice bowls for keys :)

I have a Spotify account, but I rip them from there. Up to 400k songs now. I use PlexAmp to stream to my devices.

pirate .flac files

I pay for Spotify, price hasn't raised in years. I pay for a family plan so mother people from my family (that live in different countries) can use it too.

I work on my computer, so I'm usually listening to music all day long, I have multiple playlists I alter depending on my mood, plus several albums as well. So, yeah, I think it's worth it for me. That being said if they removed the family sharing or increased their price drastically I would definitely consider alternatives.

Well of course not. I don't have physical discs or a steamer so steaming them is a bit difficult

Jokes aside, I have literally never used music streaming... First of all I don't listen to that much music. Even when I did, I tried Soundcloud for a bit but then quickly switched over to Bandcamp. I'm not that big on having to listen to the latest music and I don't like mainstream stuff, so YouTube is sufficient for discovery for now

I'm not very big on audio quality so I mostly just do yt-dlp these days on songs that I listen a lot... I could go back to Bandcamp (or pirate and leave personal donations) if I ever become an audiophile, but realistically a lot of musicians I listen to are financially stable if not wealthier than me (most of them probably have stable contracts from large gaming companies) so I don't see a lot of point...

Yep I'm not streaming - waste of mobile data

I buy CDs a lot. I love CDs. I love ripping them.

My problem is that I want to be able to get suggestions for music that I might like based on what I listen to. If I just downloaded music I like I'll just end up listening to that and nothing else.

Just like broccoli.

I stream but from my own server.

I've got a collection curated over the last 15 years by my partner with over 40k tracks. I can shuffle and it will play for over 3 months without a repeat.

Yeah it keeps the wrinkles out, but I'm in a damp climate. I don't want mildew.

I have mp3s and an 800 KB binary that can play them. That's it.

People massively overcomplicate this.

If by streaming, you mean using a client-server architecture to get a sound signal to the aux port, then yes, I use mpv with pipewire.

Oh and I buy music from GoG and Steam.

I don't, I just play the thousands of mp3s I've collected over the years.

I've been buying and ripping CDs since 2007. I average 8 per year, and it limits my music discovery speed a fair bit - but that's OK.

When someone suggests a new song/band, I listen on YouTube/Vevo, and put up with the ad. It's fine. It convinces me whether I want to buy their CD or not most of the time.

You're still streaming music?

As a teen I used to pirate it and supplement with the very occasional cd purchase. I felt justified at the time given I did still pay at least sometimes and I couldn't afford to otherwise. These days, it became so ubiquitous on YouTube that I just never felt the need to buy it or torrent it and the filesharing networks all kinda disappeared anyway.

It's not exactly ethical since I use adblockers but it's just there, always instantly available and at zero cost. I'd never use a subscription service, I have no idea how much, if any music I would consume over a fixed period so paying a fixed monthly quantity makes no sense at all.

I guess the issue with this is that it's hard to discover new music. I guess it's a little sad but really but truth be told the rate of discovery for me has been significantly curtailed since high school, I guess I was never a connoisseur or great appreciator of music so my imagination in the space was pretty limited to just whatever my friends were listening to.

I use bandcamp and buy cheesy jazz records.