Streaming: why is it so unsatisfying?

Well said.

And one does not preclude the other.


I love streaming but I also love collecting.

 

This.

 

But none of that has happened with music streaming. If it does someday--for example, if Spotify suddenly says if you select classic rock you have to pay a penalty of $100 a month, or if Spotify says we are eliminating all music recorded before 2010--then I will reevaluate Spotify. But until it happens, the possibility does not stop me from wanting to use Spotify.

Record companies have placed large numbers of albums out of print all the time, for decades. When I wanted to get deeply into jazz in the early 1970s, I could literally not find copies of many great albums which I was reading about in books, because they were completely out of print. How is that any different from the supposed horrors you are describing about streaming?

 

But record companies have always had those rights. They have exercised them by dropping albums from their catalogues, placing classic albums or whole genres out of print. I experienced that a lot in the 1970s.

 

Also worth noting, with redbook and higher res streaming now widely available, and streaming equipment being sold for home hifi, there's no reason that audiophile interest in sound quality and gear can't be served by the format.

 

That seems arbitrary. Why not claim that music lovers pick up the instrument of their choice and partake in real music closer to the act of creation or in memorizing their favorite compositions? As Leroy Jones (Amiri Baraka) said in his essay about jazz, hunting is not those heads on the wall. Meaning: after music has been recorded, it is no longer the act of creation you're truly hearing. Whether discs on your shelf or icons in an interface that you click on, I really don't see the distinction at that level. It has more to do with consumer choices and what younger generations are accustomed to relative to us older folks.

 

But the record companies can’t take away my CD’s. They CAN remove content from streams.

Not only that, but are they streaming the best sounding version?

 

Streaming seems to be satisfying for a lot of people but I view them as fair whether music fans anyway. The only reason they owned physical media was because it was how to get the music. It boggles my mind that people would spend years building a collection only to throw it to the curb when they found a more "convenient" alternative, despite the quality of most of the popular services.

For me, I'm a fan and a collector. I like having discographies, collections, things I own and things I can touch. Streaming offers me none of that, and I never would have predicted its dominance. I thought like a lot of people, that streaming would be more for seeing if you like an album enough to buy a physical copy. That would make sense. For people who collect photos, stamps, trading cards, I don't think the idea of dumping their collection because they can see it online would generally cross their mind. That would be like these major labels digitizing their catalog and then throwing out the tapes because they don't need them anymore. Music collecting is the same from my perspective, and I fully expect in years to come many of those who dumped their collection with a sigh of relief will come to regret it and start collecting again. I don't need anyone to tell me it's not going to happen because unless you have a universe-approved crystal ball, you don't know.

 

After initially being an advocate of streaming (and thinking that could actually benefit physical sales) I'm now one of its fiercest oponents. Everything's wrong with streaming but right now my biggest concern it's the toll it takes on the environment, and I'm not even myself an environmentalist, activist nor it's my goal to lead a zero-emission personal lifestyle. But what the pack of Spotify, Netfilx, Youtube, Whatsapp and all the email services combined are doing to the planet is criminal and irreparable. One would need a second earth full of resources to just support and keep streaming up and running 24 x 7.

 

Spotify is free.

10 bucks is if you don't want advertisements.

 

Until recently Ultraviolet codes were distributed with BluRay & 4K discs here in UK, which gave one a streaming copy to go with the physical disc. Ultraviolet clients though were always a pain to come by; there was and is no equivalent of Movies Anywhere. With Ultraviolet shuttering their service, a subset of the films I had via redeemed codes were made available via Google’s store - but not all of them. Meanwhile all of my iTunes purchases, both music and movies, going back to 2003 remain available to me, and in the case of a number of iTunes HD purchases have been upgraded to 4K + HDR/Dolby Vision/Dolby Atmos gratis.

I was into Laserdisc from the mid-90s onwards and got into DVD midway through 1998. I bought well over 700 discs, many of which I still have as they hav’t had an equivalent BluRay reissue I could use (chiefly Criterion imports. Region free DVD machines are easy to come by, region free BluRay players less so). I bought into both HD-DVD & BluRay early on, eventually giving up my purchased HD-DVD discs when the player eventually failed. That not withstanding, I’ve bought far less BluRay discs than I every did DVDs, mostly of cherished titles (Hello Blade Runner!) rather than buy-it-all.

I’ve bought precisely 3 4K UHD BluRays. The rest I’ve made do with digital purchases, some of which have been upgraded for free to 4K, or with rentals.

I do appreciate what you’re saying that content on physical discs cannot be revoked or pulled from my abaility to play it, and for said cherished titles I’ve bought the BluRays and UHD. In the main though I’ve pretty gone over to digital purchases and rentals. Yes, Apple can revoke my access to my purchases and there isn’t a whole lot I can do about it. That said, this early iTunes music purchases from 2003 and then HD film purchases can still be played and in the case of some of the films, have been upgraded to 4K. Meanwhile I have an awful lot of DVDs and BluRays that I don’t want to part with for emotional reasons but I’m unlikely to ever play again. Apple haven’t screwed me (yet) in 16 years, and in that time generations of physical media have been and gone and are now piling up in drawers in my spare room.

In absolute terms, those digital purchases and rentals are of lower bit rate and higher compression video than their disc counterparts, and the audio is lossy and not as high resolution. In most cases though, outside of my cherished titles, the 4K HDR/DV and Dolby Atmos available on streaming & purchases are good enough for me to not worry about physical so much anymore.

I’m not wanting to suggest what works for me, the convenience , quality and price of digital films & music being good enough for me should be good enough for anyone else. Likewise my own confidence in my ‘digital media provider of choice’ should not be read as a good enough assurance for anyone & everyone else. Those albums and films I wouldn’t ever want to lose are on physical media (Beatles, Floyd, Ramones on music, Kubrick, Blade Runner etc for film). Everything else I’m fine with digital, both with quality and with the risk of potentially losing access from my provider of choice.

 

They are counting on you being a frog in a pot that they can slowly bring to a boil. Of course if they jack up the price too high too fast, you'll run. But they have savvy product marketing types who understand consumer behavior. Another factor in all this is the device manufacturers, who can influence streaming companies and purchase them outright if they want to, or stop supporting their platform on their devices. Companies like Apple can either buy you, turn your lights out, or watch you for a couple years and see how they can best capitalize on what you're doing.

It isn't much different in that respect, except that people who were fortunate enough to buy the albums when they were in print retained their private property rights to those albums they owned when they went out of print, and could listen to the albums whenever they wanted, or sell them at a premium as collector's items. With streaming, you got nothing. You are totally at the whim of the streaming service and/or device manufacturer. You could rely on them to do the right thing and keep their fees and access the same, but they won't.

As said above, I'm referring to consumer's private property rights. If you own a record and a record player, it doesn't matter what the company does. You will be able to hear your music. But if you're streaming music from a streaming company's server, you don't own any private property.

 

Doesn't affect my enjoyment at all. I grew up with CD's, but so few of them from the last 25 years sound good, so I have zero nostalgia for the format and don't miss it at all.

I really love putting on a nice, dynamic record on my turntable, putting my headphones on, and getting lost in it. I do the same for digital, but it makes absolutely zero difference that it's not on a CD. It might be a stream, it might be files from my hard drive, but it's the same 1's and 0's to my ears.

 

Streaming is fine, same music, easy access.

 

I agree it's mind boggling that anyone would abandon a collection built over a lifetime. Collecting is just too much fun imo.

Just as mind boggling is assuming that anyone who's streamed must toss their collection. I can understand comparing different formats- streaming, cd, download, cassette, vinyl, radio, etc.. but the dichotomy(sp?) that seems to exist when it comes to streaming I just don't get.

 

Not sure what you are saying. I stream music but also want to keep my vinyl and CDs. Which are you saying I should give up?

 

I spend a lot of time commuting on trains. Most of the music I listen to is MP3s on a Sony Digital Walkman. Recently I have been thinking about switching over to a streaming service like Spotify and giving up the MP3 player.

The biggest reasons I still prefer an MP3 player over a streaming service:
1. I don`t like listening to music on my phone... with the MP3 player I can instantly start/stop/rewind without logging into my phone, opening the app, messing with the software. Plus it frees up my phone so I can check email and doesn`t drain my phone battery.
2. The MP3 player is lighter, fits in my shirt pocket. It`s great for when I am jogging. The phone is heavy, doesn`t fit in my pocket.
3. I have noticed albums missing on Spotify. I guess this is less a problem if you subscribe to multiple streaming services. But some albums I want are not there. I also worry about albums disappearing on different services.

I love the idea/culture/legacy of physical media, but the truth is most of my music is not listened to on physical media anymore. I live in an extremely small apartment, so there`s just a limit to how many CDs/LPs I have space for. In recent years, I have bought a lot of CDs and instantly ripped them to MP3 and then never looked at the CD again (being honest). I used to care more about artwork, but as someone else said, the artwork/liner notes on most CDs is so small that you need a magnifying glass. I will probably always buy certain albums as just a souvenir of bands I like.

I do think the vinyl experience is significantly better than MP3s or streaming. But it`s pretty hard to listen to vinyl on the crowded train.
I am less of an audiophile than many here -- before I got my first MP3 player, I used to record vinyl and CDs to cassette and listen on a cassette Walkman. I always loved the convenience of on-the-go music over perfect sound quality.

 

You don't think other things influence how we hear it?

We live in a world where the shape of a chocolate bar affects its flavour, the label of a wine affects its perceived taste, the colour of a Doctor's pill changes how effective it is.

If something as seemingly trivial as the colour of a sugar pill can change how it effects the brain, then it's not a major leap to consider that the form music is presented in may change how it is processed by the brain, also.

(Unlike a certain Mr Young, I don't think this has anything to do with inaudible ultra-high frequencies somehow becoming audible, when we look at benefits/weaknesses of Spotify vs Hi-Res vs CD etc. I do think context is important. Streaming is convenient, easily accessible. And convenience and a sense of fulfilment don't tend to go together: psychologically we tend to enjoy things more that we've put some effort into; similar to what is sometimes referred to as "the IKEA effect").

 

Well, we are either frogs in a boiling pot to the streaming companies, or there is no pot at all, and none of this will ever happen, and it is just a pot that you have made up.

 

I am keeping my 20,000+ CD and LP music collection. I am not throwing any of it to the curb. I also like streaming.

 

I'm saying your CDs and vinyl give you more rights/protections as a consumer. They are your private property. When you stream music, you are paying and/or providing data to a company/several companies for using their platform and accessing what's on their server. But if you're enjoying it you should keep using it.

What I'm really trying to say is that the company may have been founded to provide music to you but the reason it stays in business is because it makes money or wins investment, and it comes under increasing pressure to make money and grow. There is simply no business in existence that provides services for free or a low, unchanging price, and stays in business. That's just the reality consumers face.

 

Maybe someone has addressed this already, but it's $150 if you buy the physical product. I buy the digital downloads which have been at most $40, I think. I have no need for books that I will look at one time and take up massive amounts of space. I also don't have a Blu-Ray player, so no need for a physical product. I don't even own a CD player anymore. My ears aren't good enough to detect quality between streaming/MP3/CD/vinyl. When MP3s came out at the turn of the century, there were many lousy quality MP3s, but not anymore -- again -- to my ears.

 

Thank you for a thoughtful response.

Ditto. I’m not always the briefest but I might skim past a point or two here, there’s a lot!!

For example, let's look at books. Some books, such as reference books, may or may not warrant owning. A biography may or may not be something you want to keep forever. They're not all equal in terms of a personal value one puts upon them. To be more concrete, I've read Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (all of it) but I no longer own a physical copy. It's a great read, and as good as many found the movies, the books were so much better; but personally, I don't need it around. However, my favorite author is JG Ballard - and I can't imagine not owning all of his books in paper form. In fact, I own some of them in multiple copies, and we're not talking about 1st Editions here, just cover designs that I had to have.

It’s irrelevant to the conversation at hand but my book library used to be excessive and when I was moving around a lot it was absolute hell. Oddly, the more pain it cost to box them all up and move the more worthwhile it seemed. I split with my girlfriend and fully embraced Kindle after that because I just couldn’t do it any longer. In my experience books are a much bigger pain than CDs and records. So, so heavy to move. I do have my nice hardback LOTR trilogy still, though … Still, I think the theory is similar in both cases. We do have a tendency to fetishize the object a bit rather than the contents. I know you don’t like that word!

People tend to overlook the fact that a book is in fact technology. It was technology created many moons ago, and we've become so used to seeing and using it, we forget it's just that - technology. However, when it comes to Ballard, I hate reading him on a Kindle. I got a bunch of his titles, and I couldn't get on with that at all. Same words, different experience. On the other hand, I've been reading some books on how experts are no longer valued in our society, and I find them fine on a Kindle. In short - all books aren't created equally.


All books are created equally but our connection to them is different. I think if you read 99% books on kindle then that 1 special book takes life in the form of a physical object and it feels more concrete and special. The thing is, I think we often confuse needing that object to enjoy something with wanting that object in order to express in a particular way how we enjoy something.

You reference people not being able to afford a book, and therefore using a library, but let's not forget the high cost of accessing Spotify. You seem to asking me to believe that someone who can afford a Smartphone, tablet, laptop, or desktop computer - and can pay for an internet connection, AND be educated enough to navigate all this and fix problems as they inevitably occur, is to be pitied for not having access to sufficient funds to satisfy their desire for music. Hm, I'm not feeling that. They clearly have some money and time. They simply choose to spend it elsewhere, and in different ways. I can't readily equate that with a kid from a poor background and an insatiable appetite for reading. Honestly, I think most Spotify users are like that those you mentioned using the Oxford Companion. Listening to music isn't about a cursory listen on the move, it's about a deeper listening experience, imo.


With all due respect I’m not sure you’re in touch with how people live their lives, here. Nobody is not going to have a phone of some kind, it’s a basic form of life and people’s window onto the world as much as having a radio or TV would have been 50+ years ago. Not to have one would be to be left behind in everything. (Fewer and fewer are bothering with the cost of a desktop PC or audio system though) I think most younger people are probably sharing Spotify family accounts which at £15 per month amounts to probably under £50 a year for that person and access to all music rather than , say, the ten CDs or downloads you could get with that money. When I say poor I mean people living relatively low-wage lifestyles where the issue is not “I cannot pay my rent or buy stuff” but “I get by because I think about what I spend here, cut back on costs there, don’t run a car, save up for clothes, don’t eat out much because that’s too expensive and then there’s rent and bills and council tax to think about …” it’s a drastically different lifestyle from a middle-class one with tons of disposable income whereby finance is a daily burden because it’s always on your mind. I know because I’ve done both, and I’m also significantly poorer now that I was, when I spent money like water, – by choice – than I was 10 years ago. I’m not going to give up my phone or my Spotify subscription … but I can no longer afford to save enough money to get a deposit for a house. You’re forced to make these choices. The point about Spotify is that it represents good value so, yes, people are likely to pay for it. Vinyl and CDs no longer represent good value. In fact, they were poor value when I grew up but I still scrimped and saved to buy them at £10-15 each because I loved music.


I object to two phrases you used, "fetishising owning stuff", and "people hole themselves off from them in order to hoard their own purchases". You're wrong on both counts. Liking something, and spending your money and time on it, isn't "fetishising" it. It's simply a matter of expressing both pleasure and pride at something well done. I have always, and still do, sit and listen with friends (well, mostly a singular friend these days). My wife and I share our musical experiences. I'm on this site daily talking about music I like, dislike, and so on. There's a terrific thread here about Avant Garde music which is almost entirely recommendations. All that music is shared in so many ways beyond that one physical disc that sits in my own collection (which, in the vast majority of cases, isn't unique in any way since many other people have the very same discs in theirs). By describing it as "fetishising" you're over-cooking it, imo.

I hope you didn’t take that as a criticism because I see myself as being fetishistic of these objects also and I still agree with all of your points here. There are plenty of ways to enjoy a physical collection. I’m messing around with mine most nights, even if it’s just reorganising stuff, but often looking at it and wondering what to play. Even my gf sometimes looks at a CD from the pile on the floor and says “play this one” whereas if it were Spotify she’d be lazy and think of the same album she’d played several hundred times before. There’s real benefit to be gained from flicking through a physical collection – I love them, but the point I’m making is that Spotify also has a lot to offer if you use it correctly. But I don’t see “fetishizing” as that negative, really. I just mean that possessing the object gives a kind of additional pleasure that you don’t necessarily really need and know you could realistically do without if you were a bit mentally stronger.



As for "hoarding", that too isn't correct. What is the difference for you between a "hoard" and a collection you've spent a lifetime putting together? A "hoard" to me infers it's just a grab bag of whatever I could lay my hands on, sitting in piles in the corners of the room.

Hoarding is a collection you hold on to and refuse to give up. As a word I don’t think it says too much about how the collection was amassed or maintained.


Now let's consider "time constraint", which you say is "equally" prevalent on Spotify. I disagree with you on that. I'm reminded of people on this very site who insist albums have "filler" on them. Meaning, there are X number of really good tracks, but the band just threw on the others to make up the numbers. I believe this is (almost) complete nonsense. Filler doesn't really exist. What exists is personal preference. You like some tracks, you don't like others.

Let's look at Billion Dollar Babies by Alice Cooper as an example. When it came out back in the day, Mary Ann was pretty damn weird, and that's coming on an album where weird veers between verbose political rants, necrophilia, and tongue in cheek outrage. I mean, it's nice and all, but when you compared it to the other tracks, it just wasn't as good and comes off as a bit of a prank. I've also never been thrilled by Elected. In a Spotify world, I could skip those tracks very easily. I probably would if I'd used streaming back then. Yet, I stuck with it. skipping tracks wasn't easy back in the day. So the songs played, even if I couldn't wait to get to I Love the Dead ASAP. And over time, you know, I'd miss those tracks now. They're part of the record, and removing them would take something away from the experience. Buying an album was/is a commitment. I'd never buy something I thought I was only going to listen to once, and even if I could listen to it once ( via Spotify, for example), why would I do that if I have lots of music to listen to that I *do* want to spend more time with?


I agree in theory. I mean, filler does exist, but I’m not too concerned about that either way. Over time I’ll skip tracks I don’t want to listen to if I don’t enjoy them. There’s nothing inherently wrong with skipping a track on an album. But you’re equating doing so with some lazy music-listening behavior. I love Led Zeppelin but I almost never play Hats off to Roy Harper, it’s just a bit of rubbishy noise at the end of Zep III. Sometimes I’ll play Presence in its entirety and sometimes I’ll play my favourite tracks. It’s fine if you know the album and you’ve determined what you enjoy and how you want to listen. I think the issue comes if you quickly decide something is filler before you’ve played it a bit and let it sink in or you never choose to revisit a song you don’t enjoy. Your example is a pretty good one – although I love Elected – but I think you’re wrong in thinking there’s too much encouragement to skip tracks. I have periods where I play favourite songs and then I’ll listen to my “new” album for the day. If I don’t know it very well I won’t skip through tracks and I’ll start forming an idea of what I like about that album. Skipping doesn’t happen unless I’ve played it probably 5 times or so.


I believe Spotify encourages you to move quickly. It's specifically designed to make you consume music. That's why recommendations are so prevalent on the platform. Spotify only makes money if you're streaming their music, and they'll know down to the number of clicks how you're using it. Just as Facebook and other Social media sites have teams of psychologists helping them design interfaces and the like, to exert control over their users, so does Spotify. Facebook is so seductive that people are willing to share all kinds of details about their lives to complete strangers - yet if they received a questionnaire asking the same things, they're tear it up and throw it away. The key thing is, they're designed to make you share things. Spotify is designed to make you stay logged in. There's a layer of subterfuge going on. For example, you'll never see a title in your recommendations list if its not carried on Spotify, which is an obvious example, but a salient one. They do studies tracking eye movements of their users to see how best to control what you look at, etc. They're not alone in doing it, either.


Spotify want your monthly subscription and if they get that they honestly don’t care what you’re listening to. They’ll get paid, I expect, by record labels to be more pushy about promoting certain records, but they’ll lose no sleep as long as you continue to enjoy using the service. And they know you’re enjoying if you play lots of tracks, so they’ll keep encouraging you to “jump back in” or whatever. Look, we’re smart enough to avoid that lure if we want it be, it isn’t hard. I spend most of my time on sites looking for albums I want to hear and not following their rabbit hole of recommendations. Believe it or not, though, sometimes it’s useful too. I’ll happily stick on a “we think you’ll like” playlist in the gym when I want a bit of variety but I’m not in the zone to be thinking too hard about it.


So, while a time constraint is indeed something we all must face, I don't think it plays in at the same intensity. It's very easy to change course on Spotify, which some may think is good, and some bad. I've grown up never being able to afford all the music I wanted to own. I never will. All the constraints, space, money, time - have fluctuated over time. Space I've not worried about, I make space for the things I love. If the dining room table has to go, the table has to go. Money is always an issue, but I've been fortunate that for the most part I've always been able to afford something, even if it's not been everything I wanted. Note I have made sacrifices elsewhere to make this happen - I don't smoke, I don't drink alcohol, I don't do weed, I don't own a TV. This isn't because I wanted to live a pious life, but was a honing of what was truly important to me. Listening to music is very important. I simply couldn't listen to all the music I want, and watch Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad, or whatever - so I've not seen either of them.

As above, likewise for the most part, though I’m in a position where I choose to take an easy job for less money because it frees up my mental space to enjoy these things more … I know I could work for a higher salary if I pushed myself, but then I’d end up like Schnitz, getting excited about my homepod and listening to coldplay (just kidding, Schnitz is cool ) I agree there’s always a push and pull with what you can take and have to give up, but I don’t think “having too much” is a bad thing in this instance. Spotify is offering a service and it’s a good one, I don’t see the reason not to take advantage of it because you don’t own a TV or watch Game of Thrones.


Perhaps we have our strongest disagreement when you write "I think that spotify increases the need for music-lovers to engage with what they choose to listen to". This I strongly disagree with. A title comes up on the screen, you click on it, or not. You listen to the entire track, or not. You listen to album it's from, or not. Now, it's true that's possible with Vinyl or CD - but I'd argue it's nowhere near the same incentive to do so. A click is.... hell, I've clicked 20+ times thus far writing this reply! Distractions are many - what other tabs do you have open? What emails are coming in? What status updates have you been alerted to on Facebook? etc. Accessing the Internet is a pot puree of attention grabbers and things screaming to claim your next click. Again, it's by design. There's no cost associated with bailing on one piece of music over another other than time. Time in the sense I used it is apportioned in, let's say, 20 minute chunks (a side of an album on Vinyl), on Spotify, it's measured in seconds. Which is not to say every Spotify user does this.


I haven’t been distracted once whilst writing this. I guess I’m focused on what I’m doing right now. However, I agree to an extent, the internet, social media, mobile phones do offer a lot of opportunity to distract yourself and there are certainly areas now where I do get distracted and can’t focus. I mean, I could be reading a book but I’m writing a message on a forum. It’s easier. I say do what you gotta do to make you feel like you’re enjoying the music and focusing on it – I don’t struggle with overclicking when I’m playing music because hearing and getting to know this stuff genuinely excites me. Which isn’t to say that I never say “meh, don’t like this” and move on, but my routine is I pick an album I want to listen to, download it and listen to it. Or more correctly, I download 50 albums and they sit on my phone demanding I listen to them and I’m able to make a choice in the morning or evening because they’re all there!


Let's get real for a moment. When it comes to Rock/Pop, I've absolutely no interest in going to a gig. Not anymore. I've done plenty in the past, but that part of the experience is over for me. I don't like the travel, I don't like the crowds, and I don't like the cost. I can't think of a single artist I'd pay to see live at this point. I don't go to Jazz or Classical performances either, but I'm not willing to say I never would, so that's an open door. What's clear is that, over the years, my desire to see any musician live has dwindled to almost zero. I had a good time when I did go, but that's over for me now. Of course, not drinking or doing drugs plays into that. If an artist stops making records and releasing them on physical media, then they move out of my purview.


A long time before Spotify there were campaigns – classical – to keep music live, because it was considered that’s how you should best enjoy and appreciate music. Now you’re saying it’s CD or at home. I was just sortof highlighting that there’s a tension there. Again, it’s absolutely ok to prefer listening the way you want to listen and get the most out of it. That said, live music is a great way to experience it and altogether very different.


Finally, is Spotify simply a library? Mmmmmmm, no. It's a library in the sense that's it's a catalog of titles you can pull out, in essence "borrow" and then return, but that's as far as it goes. Spotify is all about the hard sell. Spotify is a corporate entity focused on market share, competition, and profits. They're taking in oodles of dollars, and while they're not showing a profit just yet, they're very focused on it, and are using those funds to forever expand their market share. At the very heart of Spotify there's a business mentality, dollars and cents, and that's not a library. Not in spirit. I also have never seen a library hard selling you to read author

Libraries, public or academic, don’t necessarily have to turn a profit but don’t be fooled into thinking they don’t constantly have to justify their relevance by persuading people to use them. If we sit here too quiet with nobody borrowing books or using our services, we’ll be cut funding or closed down. Same thing in reverse, really. Not so different from Spotify … we’re gonna recommend you good stuff that is useful to you so that you keep coming back and using us.

I have to move on, I may leave the plastic bag anecdote…

 

Among other things people have said, for me, I get way more satisfaction buying because I can either put it in a folder or a pile for future listening and not forget about it.

Streaming? I am trying to get into it. Just for convenience and to save money. So I'm buying less now, but also forgetting what new albums I want to stream because I can't see them.

What do streamers do when a new album is available and want to listen to it in the future and not forget about it? Put it in a playlist?