The only subscription i have (except for energies and flat which are basically subscriptions as well) is for my choice of music. Because of the convenience factor. What would be an alternative? Buying albums? I am not familiar with any nice platforms for this.
Bandcamp, for example (and there are a few smaller ones like it). It will be more expensive than streaming subscriptions, but knowing how poorly artists get compensated by these (and how the payout per stream further dilutes over time), makes one see the whole streaming model as corrupt. It led to artificially lowered expectations on what music should cost among the general public, and now of course it has become very hard to compete with the streaming platforms because of this altered consumer behavior.
Yes; not a lawyer, but as far as I can tell yes (and physical media too); you can, in advance (which I do), in any format you want without restriction - it’s just FLAC/MP3 etc. No DRM.
I do prefer buying full digital discography when available, because it’s such a good deal. For $30 or so, I get years and years of albums, while still supporting an artist with a much larger sum than I could via a streaming platform.
Admittedly, I’m still also using YT Music precisely for the reason I described above, and also because it makes it much easier to discover new music, compared to Bandcamp (something I’m hoping to potentially address in my own alternative).
This is a bummer! But it highlights more of an unfortunate reality we all have to deal with when buying digital goods online - always need to get a backup right away when possible, since no platform lasts forever.
I never subscribed to Spotify etc - I always bought mp3s (well, at least after they became DRM-free). It's relatively cheap. Spotify is currently charging $15/month. I can buy 11 mp3s for that amount. That's almost the amount of mp3s I buy in a year (because I've already bought most of the ones I like).
Also, when I buy it, I never have to worry about the streaming service dropping the music I like.
But which platform do you use for this. How do you discover new music? Do you have to upload the music manually to your device? Do you use some platform which automates this? My point is, that the streaming services are really convenient in this case. And that i mostly pay for the convenience.
Discovery: Radio while driving. When I cared more about music, I would actively seek music out (checking out the charts in various countries, etc). I'm just not that into music any more.
Upload to device? I use FolderSync on Android to sync any new songs between my PC and phone. It checks daily/weekly. Given that I was already using FolderSync to sync other directories between my PC and phone, adding this directory was "free".
I'll grant simply paying Spotify a monthly fee is more convenient. For me, though, losing it all because they change their policies, lose license deals, or go under is worth the "inconvenience" several times over. I've accumulated mp3s of pretty much any song I liked ever since I understood the concept of what a "song" is. I would never want to lose that,
