In the last few days, I've seen a lot of people getting angry at Spotify and (now) at Google Music. What I am surprised at is so few folks are talking about going back to physical media.

Music CDs will take up physical space and might be more expensive upfront (though I doubt they'll be so in the long run). However, the upsides are huge. One, you own the content forever - even if you switch countries or want to pass it along to your children. Two, you can rip higher quality audio (such as FLAC as opposed to max 320 kbps from streaming services). Three, you get a physical artifact of the music you love (artwork and all).

I buy music on Bandcamp in flac. This way I can do what I want with it and store it in perpetuity. I'm not interested in going back to physical media but I like owning the music I care about instead of just renting it.

Because it's tedious.

1. Music is a commodity, everything should be available everywhere all the time. I don't care about "owning" my music, I care about listening to music. 2. Quality is good enough on Spotify. I'm not even sure I can notice the difference between Spotify and a CD playing on the same system. And I don't want to spend time on ripping and tagging and sorting and storing music. 3. I have enough stuff.

Spoken as someone who spent an inordinate amount of time and money buying and ripping CD's back in the days. And downloading from torrent sites of course. My digital music collection was huge and in neat order. Threw it all away when Spotify came on the scene.

I hate physical media and I think most others do as well. It is inconvenient, you can't make a playlist and it gets damaged.

I can buy downloadable MP3s from Amazon, if I wanted to own the music.

Thing is, I don't. I want a streaming service that has all the music ever produced, that I can hook into the player of my choice, and one that works on my phone when I am driving, and at my computer at work when I am working and at my home computer when I am at home.

CDs wouldn't do any of that and they are a pain to rip and I don't want the music on different devices.

I can't hear the difference between a 256+ MP3 and neither can most people. I won't argue that nobody can, but most people who have thousands of dollars in audio equipment probably weren't streaming to begin with.

I agree with to you a point but how am I supposed to find new music to buy without some kind of radio/recommendation system. FM radio certainly doesn't play the type of music I like.

I'm thinking I'll buy some of the songs I had marked in Google Play Music. I'm not sure I'll buy all of them or even if I can.

Also I haven't owned a CD player that connects to a computer in 7 years. Even the gamer PC I just built 2 months ago I didn't put a drive in it.

> but how am I supposed to find new music to buy without some kind of radio/recommendation system

You can do both; use Spotify / Youtube whatever to find new songs, and then buy your own copy if you find something you like.

> Also I haven't owned a CD player that connects to a computer in 7 years. Even the gamer PC I just built 2 months ago I didn't put a drive in it.

Personally I no longer buy CD’s, I buy files on Bandcamp etc., but with the exception of the artwork most of the advantages are the same. And the songs synchronise with your tablet, your phone and will always be there without internet connection. I have a Spotify enabled DJ-app, and that integration stopped working recently, which was inconvenient, but really not a big deal because I have the files for my core library.

> I'm thinking I'll buy some of the songs I had marked in Google Play Music. I'm not sure I'll buy all of them or even if I can.

That’s a great idea. It’s true that you won’t find everything. But in between Bandcamp (lossless and big cut to artists), Qobuz (lossless and more major labels) and the iTunes Store (high quality AAC, cheap) a lot more is available than before, and DRM free. A much better situation than with video, for example.

Yeah I’ve stuck with MP3s since the days when you could only download 1 per night. I’ve been made fun of uncountable times by friends and strangers alike, but I’ve never had my music-listening not work, no matter what device/OS.