[spinningslate]

Instead of what - vast data centres full of electronics, consuming huge quantities of electricity, controlled by techno-feudalistic megacorps who keep almost all of the money and supply a pittance to the artists? Everything has a cost but those records, CDs and cassettes look like a good deal from here. I still have LPs I inherited from my parents. They still play on my 20 year old turntable.

[pibaker]

Do you think DVDs were manufactured in mom and pop workshops untainted by corporate influence? Quite the opposite actually. Every DVD and DVD drive legally sold had to pay licensing fees! So is blueray!

https://www.cnet.com/culture/blu-ray-victory-means-royalties...

https://blu-raydisc.info/flla-faq.php

> Instead of what - vast data centres full of electronics, consuming huge quantities of electricity, controlled by techno-feudalistic megacorps who keep almost all of the money and supply a pittance to the artists?

So what's your alternative, stocking every single video store in the country with plastic discs with DRMs transported by diesel trucks? Do you seriously think the material cost of manufacturing and transporting a disc is less than what it takes to send its contents over the internet?

[spinningslate]

Yes, I would like to see a full cost comparison. Transferring one time digitally will no doubt cost (a lot) less than physical manufacture and distribution. But it’s not one time transfer: it’s streaming on demand, every time each person listens to each track, because the economic model is rental not purchase.

I use streaming services. I like the flexibility and ubiquity of access. But my favourite music I still buy on cd or vinyl. Why? Because it means I’m not subject to the whims of a megacorp removing access and it means more goes to the artist. I’ve been buying music for 40 years and still listen to some of stuff I bought then. I hope to live long enough to do the same for the music I buy now.

[nhecker]

"Transferring one time digitally" DRM-free audio files is possible and above-board (i.e., you pay and the artist gets paid) through services like bandcamp.com and their ilk. Of course your artist needs to have their music there first.

[tempaccount5050]

No, store it on your computer/phone/iPod. But honestly data centers are probably very efficient for this. I'm not going to do the math, but storing data on flash and serving it to billions of people probably is efficient if I had to guess.

[spinningslate]

I would like to see a full cost comparison. Centralised storage - replicated, distributed and maintained online as necessary - vs media that, once manufactured and distributed, essentially costs nothing to maintain. iPods/phones get replaced much more frequently than LPs/casettes/CDs. And that’s just the resource consumption comparison. There’s then the economic polarisation of wealth to the small handful of online music renters vs distributed ownership (of copies: the original work of art remains with the artist, at least in theory).

[wallst07]

Couldn't you just extrapolate the same reasons people say living in urban areas is more efficient than rural?

It seems trivial to see that storing all the music in 1 or more DCs for the entire world is more efficient than a whole industry to create and redistribute plastics and specialized devices to play this plastic.

[pixl97]

>vs media that, once manufactured and distributed, essentially costs nothing to maintain

Eh, not really, it costs it's own storage and care. This is not free even if you have discounted in to the rest of the cost of your life. Not destroying LPs for example is a good bit of work.

With music itself, it's electronic storage is insanely cheap. One middleling server could easily contain just about the entirety of all mankinds works. Parallel distribution really is the bigger factor, and I guess that costs almost nothing itself. Marketing and software around marketing likely is the majority of the cost here.

Trying to compare a cellphone to a record is just not a really workable thing. People are going to have the cellphone anyway. The fact it is a media player is a welcome bonus.