[tonyblundell]

To buy the amount of music I listen to on Spotify would cost hundreds of pounds each month, so I prefer to subscribe for £10. I can still buy the obscure/local/unsigned music I want to listen to that isn't available on there.

To me the idea of owning music is tied to the need for physical media, which we don't have any more. We don't worry about owning TV shows for example because they weren't traditionally broadcast that way.

[DanielStraight]

Indeed. I've listened to music from over 2500 different albums on Spotify (thank you, Last.fm). Back in the days of $15 albums and no way to buy individual songs this would have cost me $37,500. With $1 track purchases, things get a little more reasonable. I've listened to around 10000 distinct tracks, so now I'm only spending 80 years worth of Spotify premium for the music I've consumed in 2-3 years on Spotify.

Of course, this ignores the fact that there's no way I could have discovered all the music I listen to without Spotify. Even if I knew of all the artists I listen to on Spotify, I could never possibly have found all their music in physical form. And if I had to purchase all the music I listened to separately, I never would have been willing to explore so much.