[javajosh]

>I feel like we've lost essentially nothing.

We've lost: cover art, liner notes, the ability to share or sell your music without 3rd party permission, music stores, and in many cases local music scenes that formed around music stores. Bret Victor has been harping on this for years, but we've also lost a great deal of tactility - putting a CD in a player and pressing buttons to play it uses your hands in pleasant ways that screens just aren't.

As for discovery, the promise is greater than reality. I used Spotify for a while specifically for this purpose, but I didn't discover a single new artist through it. YouTube, by contrast, has introduced me to new artists, as have a few radio stations like KCRW and KQED (who both have excellent YT channels too). And you know what? Music discovery is a different mode of listening than enjoying my library and ne'er the twain shall meet, IMHO.

[so_dewy]

>We've lost: cover art

Spotify does have cover art for albums, at least for me it does.

> Music discovery is a different mode of listening

For me it really is the same mode. I regularly discover new artists when my handcrafted playlists finish playing and it starts to play music based on the playlist I just listened to

[mariusor]

> Spotify does have cover art for albums, at least for me it does.

I think parent means something like this: https://www.encartespop.com.br/2012/09/encarte-pink-floyd-da...

The vinyl and especially CD covers were sometimes a little more than just barren images.

[TedDoesntTalk]

> I didn't discover a single new artist through it.

That's surprising. I've never used Spotify for this, but 10+ years ago used Pandora for that purpose. I was overjoyed with the new artists I learned about.

[Godel_unicode]

It’s not surprising to me that someone who very clearly hates Spotify for ideological reasons doesn’t have a good experience when using it.

Spotify is amazing for discovery, they’re holding it wrong.

[javajosh]

someone who very clearly hates Spotify for ideological reasons

Why would you say that? It's a pretty harsh dig, and it's not justified. I tried Spotify and didn't like it. I never said I hated it. I don't like it because I weight its trade-offs differently than you. I mean, have YOU tried the alternative I've suggested? If not, is it because of your ideology?

[throwaway675309]

Let's cover each one of these in turn:

1. Cover art / liner notes - any given digital album can include links to these notes or even a website with the cover art, and if you're referring to the physical component I would argue that's just less trash that comes with the predominant reason for me purchasing music... which is the music.

2. Ability to share music - I frequently share music from Spotify all the time, either using the Spotify link and sending it to my friends over Chat, or even just telling them the name of it and they can frequently find the exact song on YouTube.

3. Ability to sell music - since I'm not really purchasing the music on Spotify I don't feel like this is a fair argument

4. Music stores - i'll give you this one though for a lot of us we simply don't have the free time to physically browse for music in a brick and mortar store.

5. Discovery - anecdotal of course but I've had the exact opposite experience, the Discover weekly list that Spotify provides invariably introduces me to new artists that I would've otherwise never even heard of, and if I like a song I can look for playlists curated by users that contain that song, which is an additional avenue of discovery.

[vinceguidry]

Man I used to put CDs in players all day long, I don't miss it a single bit. I was one of the first MP3 player adopters and never looked back. I also used tapes. Was happy to ditch those for CDs too. Never used vinyl though. Maybe I would have liked that more than tapes and CDs. Seems plausible enough, but then again maybe not.

[dendriti]

As someone with mobility impairment, putting a CD in a player and pressing buttons to play was never pleasant. In fact I was often stuck with whatever five CDs were left in the player. CDs actually haven't gone away, and you can still use them today. I am glad the world has moved on though.

[ikr678]

Also, no children scratching your cd's, or loaning out physical media to friends and never getting it back.