[paulcole]

> If I stop paying the bill I will have nothing to listen to. What have we done?

We’ve created one of the most amazing values and uses of technology of our lifetimes?

Streaming per month costs so much less than a new CD did 25-30 years ago. And it’s so so so much better than buying a new CD a month.

If the average person keeps paying the (quite small) bill, they can listen to essentially anything they want to listen to (unless they have very peculiar tastes — please do not reply to tell me that the obscure 1907 ragtime classic you need to listen to is not on Spotify).

It’s incredible!

[esskay]

This assumes you work on the principle of continuously buying new music. If you're someone with a library of ~2k songs and that doesnt change in any real way for years on end it probably doesn't stack up as well, especially when cd's are so darn cheap these days, being able to pick up ~5 full albums on CD for the price of 1 month streaming with little effort for example.

Obvious point about not owning it either, so if an artist or whole label decides to have a fight with your streaming provider, sorry tough luck, you just lost them from your library.

[losses]

I agree with your point of view. I have a music library of about 3000 songs, and it hasn't grown much in recent years. Owning this music gives me a great sense of security, as it will never be taken down on a whim by a platform.

[paulcole]

> Obvious point about not owning it either, so if an artist or whole label decides to have a fight with your streaming provider, sorry tough luck, you just lost them from your library.

I’ve never had this happen so far. What makes you think it’s likely to happen?

> If you're someone with a library of ~2k songs and that doesnt change in any real way for years on end it probably doesn't stack up as well

This assumes you work on the principle that you’ve found “enough” music vs. that you lost interest in investing in new music because of the cost of buying it.

[eviks]

> I’ve never had this happen so far. What makes you think it’s likely to happen?

The fact that it's already happened, and not once?

Google "recording label removed from spotify" for No.1 examples such as this:

"Spotify has removed Indian record label Zee Music Company’s catalog after negotiations for a renewal of their licensing agreement fell through. As a result, the No.1 track on Spotify in India over the past two weeks, “Apna Bana Le” from the soundtrack to the 2022 Hindi Examplesfilm Bhediya, is no longer available on the platform. "

[esskay]

> I’ve never had this happen so far. What makes you think it’s likely to happen?

You've either been lucky, or just havent noticed. Spotify used to be really bad for this, instead of it greying out in your library they used to remove every trace of it ever existing in your library, which massively sucked if it was an accidental or short term removal as it would never come back into your playlists.

Music is removed from streaming platforms all the time, it's not a rare thing, or a surprising one. As the other person said, google it and you'll see its a regular occurance.

> This assumes you work on the principle that you’ve found “enough” music vs. that you lost interest in investing in new music because of the cost of buying it.

(UK here so working on our pricing, convert as necessery)

Lets say you've bought/paid for your 2k songs. You put away the £10/month it costs for a streaming service. 6 months in you find a new artist, you want their album. You hop on ebay or wherever to buy a CD, you pay between £3 and £10 for their album (seriously you can get second hand CD's for even relatively new stuff on Ebay for a couple of quid).

In that 6 months you've put away £60 to spend on music, but have spent less than £10, and you own the copies. Nobody can take them away.

Streaming = convenience, thats really all you gain. But if you intend on having your music long term, it ends up being a massive cost.

10 years of Spotify costs £1200. If all you've listened to in that 10 year period is roughly the same few thousand songs thats a heck of a price to pay for conveinence, especially when that £1200 could've been turned into £2663.57 by sticking it in a managed account.

[losses]

You might be right, but the Spotify user experience is really frustrating to a certain extent. Every time I leave home and go offline, there's always a chance that Spotify won't load my offline tracks, and the playlists won't load either. Thanks, I need some peace to reflect on my failed life, bro!

Honestly, the Spotify desktop client is also quite bad. Its feels very sluggish (I'm not sure about its detailed implementation, but it gives me the feeling of a web application). Maybe this level of experience is acceptable for a social media app, but as a music player, its quality is somewhat disappointing to me.