I’m in a dilemma, I think ownership of media is important, but the convenience of Spotify and the algorithm of new music that it suggests has helped me find amazing artists that I wouldn’t have heard of otherwise.
Fellow sailors, what are your thoughts, and how do you personally listen to music?
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Maybe its a generational thing but I prefer having a Plex / Plexamp serveur with all my music as FLAC on my home server. I can better curate my collection and it’s available everywhere.
Plexamp is awesome, and the UI/UX is gorgeous in my opinion!
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I use streaming for music these days. For one, I’m able to get either cheap or free premium services via some tricks (Apple Music currently has an exploitable, constant free trial through Shazam). I’d still consider paying for a service, though, if I had to.
For me, I consume music much differently than other media. For shows, movies, and literature, I typically only watch or read something once ever, at the most once every year. This means I don’t feel the need to retain or backup most things. I still keep what I acquire while I have space on my NAS, but there are no backups and if I ever need to free up space, I know the first volume to clean up.
Music I constantly listen to over and over. If I go through the effort of acquiring something, I’ll need to make sure the metadata is consistent. When I had my old collection, I’d have to make sure it was backed up to cloud storage because I couldn’t risk losing all that music I had found and curated. I found I was approaching the point where my monthly costs of backing up to Glacier-like services was beginning to approach the monthly cost of streaming. Plus, despite some of the discovery algorithms being terrible, it’s still been a useful tool for discovering new music. I’m also able to take streaming on the go, I cannot take the entire library I curated. I’m not someone who knows ahead of time what I’ll want to listen to.
I suppose this was all a long-winded way to say the cost-benefit analysis no longer made sense for keeping local music files for me. Part of it is streaming music services roughly have everything I want to listen to. I don’t need to subscribe to 5 different services like video platforms. Music streaming services, at least now, mostly understand that they need to be more convenient that pirating.
You can stream but not subscribe in a few ways.
You can build a collection of music on your own server using Navidrome, Nextcloud Music, Jellyfin, or Plex (proprietary) and then stream it to devices. You can find music with Soulseek (Nicotine+), torrent, and other methods.
You can stream Spotify, Youtube, Soundcloud, Bandcamp and others without any account or advertising. Many of these tools for doing so also allow you to download the music. Newpipe, Nuclear, Spotube…
por qué no los dos?
I agree with OP that it is best to have DRM free files. For music recommendations, I use a Scrobber plugin for Last.fm.
I normally stream music, then download it onto my own devices if I like it - then I can experience the benefits of both.
I stream because it helps me discover new artists, and makes it effortless. I do have my own library though.
I have Ampache running on a self hosted server, which has desktop and mobile apps.
I don’t know why you were down voted but thanks for this. I’m doing some research on it now. So here take this upvote
Streaming for discovery, private tracker to get it in FLAC.
I have my local library on my computer, and then use iTunes Match to stream it to all of my devices. I had originally subscribed to Apple Music when it came out, but realized that I only really listened to music that I already had purchased.
When I found out about iTunes Match, and that it cost $25 / year instead of a monthly subscription, I switched to that and I’ve been happy ever since.
This totally depends on YOU and how you consume music. I am an analog collector who has a small collection of cassette tapes and vinyl to play at home for gatherings. But then I have spotify for the car and for showering lol.
I have a smart TV with ReVanced so I don’t get commercials/ads on YouTube and can play music there too.
I stream music because you can get just about everything with any service you choose at a reasonable price. I don’t do the same for movies and TV shows because that option isn’t available. If it was, my laziness may get me to stop pirating.
Support your favourite artists by buying their merchandise and going to shows.
I stream because I like discovering new artists that I don’t know about. Otherwise keeping everything on a drive is probably better considering that you have full control over it.
I have Apple One Family and that includes Apple Music, which I share with 5 others. Can’t beat that price!
