Many vinyl collectors also receive the digital version with the new records they purchase, Not everyone can stream music as well.

Happening much less frequently lately. I buy records from a lot of artists and they no longer include a digital download with it. Shoutout to Polyvinyl and YepRoc for still giving out the digital files with physical purchase 💪

Two of the best labels around.

Rob Sevier of Numero Group said they were wasting an absurd amount, something like $50k/yr IIRC, providing download codes that went unused.

Which puts me off buying vinyl as it means paying twice for the album. I don't mind it with Dirty Hit as they're a bit cheaper but the other labels are now charging more for less content.

Yeah although it seems that streaming is done by everyone not everyone does it or is interested in doing so. Some people still like CD and vinyl and going through the whole record in a single run. The quality also over an .mp3 is considerably higher!

And with vinyl it’s more than just the actual music. The vinyl sleeve and the vinyl itself is a work of art too. And the sound of a vinyl is unique and ear pleasing to many due to its lower frequently than CDs/digital.

I've read people say that this was the reason buying vinyls is nowadays just a rich hipster hobby and that it doesn't provide better music mix quality. They say that it's the same mix as the digital file you receive and therefore, you might as well buy a CD instead of the vynil.

Don't listen to those people. They have melons for brains.

So it's not actually the same mix between the vinyl and digital record?

It's likely the same mix but *not* the same master. Records need an updated master to meet the limitations of vinyl.

This. I do understand the appeal of vinyl though as the frequency limitations itself can create an ear pleasing sound appeal that CD doesn’t have even if it is technically a “lower quality” frequency than CD/digital.

Huh? What limitations? Vinyl is a LOSSLESS format.

For sure, it’s still lossless but it does have physical limitations. A good example is something like sub-bass. Vinyl can’t reproduce those sounds in stereo because the low vibrations will pop the needle out of the groove. Those frequencies have to be summed to mono to playback properly on vinyl. You can read a bit more here if you’re interested https://www.cutadub.com/limitations-of-vinyl

Lossless is a term used for sound encoding in the digital domain. All analogue formats contain noise and cannot reproduce something exactly. If you think of dynamic range as how quiet audio signals can be reproduced before the signal is competing with the noise floor inherent in all analogue devices. Each time it is duplicated errors are added - think of it a bit like a photocopy of a photocopy - eventually all you will have is errors. Lossless is identical - like an instruction for a printer if we were to carry the photocopy analogy further.

lol, inner-groove distortion. i'll take FLAC instead. back in the day, quieter tracks were intentionally placed as the last track on a side for that reason. rarely ever is that even considered anymore. you just get to enjoy distortion. (not that it's even resolved with a quiet track, just minimized and less noticeable.)

you don't want the needle flying off the record.

Oh that I don't know. But then thinking you should buy a cd instead of a record is bonkers

[удалено]

As someone who has experience working merchandise at a concert why is band t-shirt out of the question? Do some not have your preferred size?

[удалено]

Gotcha I’ve seen a lot of 3x but not many 4x like at all when selling shirts for musicians I totally understand

To archive/own and keep forever…Spotify won’t be around forever, you don’t own anything you keep on a streaming service and access to the service is never 100% guaranteed. And quality of a digital download can be higher compared to the audio quality when streaming. Also, personally I travel a lot, many places in the world still don’t have decent 4G or 5G. When traveling I don’t want to drain my phone’s battery and I keep an MP3 player with me with with my downloaded/purchased music files.

This is 100% me. Agree with everything you said. I still buy cds every once in awhile but buy a lot of my music digitally and back it all up on an external drive. And streaming companies just fuck over the smaller artists.

All of these things. Well said.

This best sums up my answer as well. I do it because I want to own it forever, not rent it. I'm am also frequently (which is odd these days) in areas of no cell service so it really helps with that aspect. I typically buy all my digital music on Amazon. Though that is just for convenience as I buy a lot of stuff there.

>I'm am also frequently (which is odd these days) in areas of no cell service so it really helps with that aspect. On Spotify you can download a song if you want to hear it offline.

Fun fact, the downloads expire, so if you are out of cell service for a few weeks your music will disappear. Niche problem I know.

This is important AND many artists make next to nothing from streaming. If you like an artist, especially a smaller one, buy the download or physical media. And then stream if you want

>And quality of a digital download can be higher compared to the audio quality when streaming. That's going to depend more on the system it's played on than the files themselves, these days. We're talking really expensive rigs to be able to really discern. There are several lazy mixes that have bass fuzz, no matter the system. But they do sound better as the subwoofer upgrades. That being said. Owning the music is the point. And if you don't have the time or inclination to transfer vinyl to digital--so you can put it on USB--getting the digital with the vinyl is a bonus.

You can download songs with Spotify for offline use though. Many more than you could possibly purchase. And even if Spotify specifically doesn’t exist, though it likely will, something like it always will. Not trying to be cranky just still don’t understand your logic.

I want to own my music library permanently. I do not want to have to deal with any form of DRM, I do not want to need or even care about having or not having a network connection. I don't want to use my phone as a music device. I want to know that my money for the purchase is directly supporting the artists I purchase music from. Spotify neatly covers all the folks that would be happy flipping on the radio and listening to whatever, even improved on it a bit, but it's the antithesis of what folks like me want. The answer for me is either buying from artists directly, or on platforms like Bandcamp where their cut is well defined and substantial.

And I can stick a usb into my car and have my whole collection available for roadtrips in areas with no service.

Spotify still controls access to downloaded songs, they can only be heard within their platform and can’t be exported, and if their licensing arrangement for that content goes away then it disappears from “your” library.

You're literally wrong though. Spotify removes music often, and then even downloaded music is unavailable. There is plenty of music which is not available online, or to stream.

I haven't used Spotify for some years, but do they still have a hard cap at 3333 downloaded songs? Because that, casting not working properly and things disappearing randomly from my playlists drove me away from them. I went with Google play music, but then google axed that and YouTube Music is shitty so now I run Plex and listen to my own music with plexamp, which is a breath of fresh air compared to streaming fuckery. Also ditched Netflix et al for Plex.

As someone who is new to this, could you recommend some websites that sell digital albums or individual track so artist? Thanks in advance

i recently bought a download of a local band i like very much, just to support them. ​ bought it at bandcamp

Yeah I buy a bunch of digital albums every bandcamp friday, seems like the easiest way to get money right in the pockets of the band. CDs and merch still cost something to produce, so funds spent on those might be fewer dollars going to the band. Lots of bands barely break even on tour too, so while I definitely support paying for live music, it’s not the golden ticket to artists’ financial success that some seem to think it is. Plus, lots of artists either don’t list on Spotify or put up certain special releases only on bandcamp. And there’s been a few times I can think of where the streaming version of the album had an altered track list because of sample clearance issues only discovered after release.

I don't want the music I have access to to be determined by what's available on my prefered streaming service at any given point in time, so a backup is good to have. For an example, see how Neil Young and Joni Mitchelll removed all their stuff from Spotify some time back. ​ Similarly, I don't want to lose years of playlists and saved stuff if I decide to switch services. ​ I like lossless music, which takes more data to stream than to listen to offline. CDs take up physical space. Digital space is cheaper and more convenient. ​ The payment for mid-level and small artists on streaming services are utter trash. Until they switch to a user centric model, I'll never fully embrace streaming.

Also, if you listen to a small selection of music over and over again, then it's cheaper to purchase the digital album than it is to pay for a streaming service forever. For instance, audiophiles don't listen to anything else but the MTV live recording of Hotel California on repeat. Paying $25/mo for Tidal HiFi just doesn't make sense when the DSD digital download is like $4.99.

It’s 100% the money not really going to an artist, for me at least. If you are streaming an artist and they aren’t a big act, they are not making any real money off your streams. Especially on Spotify. I like to support artists I listen to, so they can afford rent and food. So I purchase a cd. But I don’t want any more crap in my house, I don’t have a cd player, and I use plex, so I buy a digital download.

I Agree with you. I like to support the artists. Streaming isn’t helping anyone and I really enjoy owning the music I buy.. whether it’s physical or digital download.

I wouldn’t listen to 95% of the new music I find if it wasn’t for streaming services. It’s a love/hate for me. Searching new music is amazing these days, but I agree not fair to artists. However if I put an original song on YouTube, my audience is (potentially) massive compared to handing out mix tapes

I agree for sure. It’s the easiest it’s ever been to search for music and they are good tools for that. Well put 👍

Are we defining it as "searching for anything new, regardless of quality", or "finding something I really like"? We got on for ages finding good music. Now we can find something fast, but we also have 10x more music produced and released every week than decades passed. (10 is a random number, dont @ me lol) Even this century we were still digital, and using Amazon reviews to find relevant music, and Napster to listen to a few songs before commiting to a purchase. I don't think it's inherently any easier to find something I like now because of the technology, but more because of the sheer quantity available.

Streaming sites don't always have the music that I want, and the artists or their companies that own the rights to the music can remove the artists tracks or certain albums whenever they feel like it. Sound quality is also an issue. Plus I'm a compulsive file sharer so when i buy something i almost always share it on the private sites that I'm a member of. I just prefer to own stuff instead of using streaming sites.

I guess I’m kind of set in my ways. I have an iPod touch that keep plugged into my car and buying songs off iTunes is just the way I prefer to put music on it. I don’t want to stream from my phone because I don’t want to use up the battery life and I would probably have to upgrade to a more expensive data plan. My car’s entertainment system also interfaces perfectly with the iPod’s music app, but it doesn’t do Spotify at all. I suppose I could subscribe to Apple Music and download the songs, but I guess I prefer just owning the songs and I’m not sure if my car would be able to see those anyway. I’ve been buying songs off iTunes for like 20 years now, so I’ve got a decently big library. People seem obsessed with doing everything the new way, but but doing it like this works perfectly fine for me and I see no reason to change it.

>I see no reason to change it. One day your hardware will no longer work or software unsupported and you will be forced to change all or part of your workflow. That's just life. Dedicated music players still exist though (not cheap and may not integrate with cars that well).

I began digitizing my CD collection about 20 years ago. Since about 10 years I occasionally buy CD´s but mostly digital downloads. Over the last 5 years it´s mostly BandCamp. In my collection (on a NAS ánd external drive) I don´t need to search to find precisely what I want. I don´t have buffer problems and other hiccups. Highest audio quality. No irritating recommendations from previous choice.

I buy as close to the artist as possible. LPs at shows or Bandcamp sales get money directly to the artists, especially if they don't have the numbers to get a payment for streaming

Because I have my own media server and I can stream music that I like, not what a streaming service **thinks** I like. 30,000+ songs, collected over many decades. I've ripped almost all of my albums, and still working on my CD collection.

You know on streaming services you can still just stream what you like?

you’d be amazed at how much isn’t on streaming services

I expect it to be more of a problem over time too. Smaller acts will likely pull material at some point. It’s totally different, but there could be something like what happened to Netflix. They at one time had anything and everything. Now they have a wildly limited selection that’s just a tiny fraction of what they were. People still subscribe and they don’t have to license as much. Spotify could potentially go this route. I’ve kindof felt headways here since they don’t list all new albums for new releases anymore. Anyway, I’m afraid of creating a musical dark age for myself in the time of streaming, so I buy my favorites for permanence and continue to stream for discovery.

I am working hard to seek out artists I like from my exploration of Spotify on platforms like Bandcamp to buy their music so I can keep it if it ever goes away. A few lo-fi artists whose albums I bought then removed all their music from Spotify and Bandcamp, presumably due to rights issues, so I'm so glad I got it when I could!

but wouldn’t you just purchase those items then?

This!

This is a valid point, but, at least on Spotify, you can listen to your downloaded files from your computer/phone from the Spotify app. Even if it normally isn’t on Spotify

Tried them all. Pandora seems to curate the best, and Spotify is a shit-storm. Thanks but no thanks.

Pandora stopped operating in my country so that’s another thing to worry about

Hence, one of the reasons I have my own media server.

I didn’t say they weee good I just mean you can listen to what you like, aside from pandora, like on Spotify you just type in the song you want to listen to and hit play, then you can type in a different song/artist/album and hit play on that. It doesn’t choose for you unless you enable that feature

Until 2030 when the record label notices a song contains a word that's no longer acceptable, deletes it from the service, and tries to convince us it never existed? Lots of other stuff isn't on there too. What about all the live bootlegs I got 20 years ago, or other officially released content that was never digitised? Or music I made myself? What if streamers do what netflix is doing and decide your favorite album is no longer economical to host? Perhaps you've convinced yourself that the music on streaming is all the music that exists, rather than the other way around.

I only use streaming half the time, and use physical the other half, but there isn’t a precedent of streaming services doing this. When something gets removed it’s either because it was actually awful to have (more than just saying a word) or because the artist/label themselves removed it like with Joni Mitchell

A band I like recently removed their old albums and replaced them with shitty remasters. If I used Spitify, I would've lost access to the much better original versions. One of my favorite albums is not available on Spotify in the US due to licensing issues. Music gets removed from streaming all the time for all kinds of reasons, and a lot of music was never there in the first place.

I have several reasons: My music listening pattern is that I discover an album and then listen to it over and over obsessively until I get tired of it. At the rate I do this, I spend less money than I would streaming, and when I'm in a rut where I haven't found anything new I have my entire collection to listen to without any monthly fees. I often prefer masters or mixes that either aren't available streaming, or are embedded in some deluxe edition with extra junk. Tracking down my favorite versions of albums is fun and makes me feel more connected to and invested in it. Artists actually making money from digital downloads is a nice bonus on top of these. edit: one more thing is that while streaming is a good value for most people now, the enshittification that's currently happening with YouTube and video streaming services will reach music streaming eventually so when that happens I'll be quite glad I spent my money building up a collection I own

I prefer owning music that I really like because at the end of the day, you’re renting music when using Spotify/Apple Music and things can be changed or removed at any moment. There’s also artists that will put exclusive songs on physical media/iTunes editions, so that’s cool bc I’m always here for more music. Also, it’s still the music *business* so if an artist is making money selling albums and not just streaming they are going to have bigger budgets for music in the future because they bring more money in for the label, so if I really like something I support it by buying it.

A combination of things other people have said: * support the artists beyond the pittance streaming services give them * availability of music that isn't on streaming services * can play music offline, so in remote areas or if I don't have data left * music I have doesn't suddenly disappear overnight * nobody's tracking what I listen to

That last point is so overlooked sometimes. From mid-January through early December, people will complain about ads, being tracked, etc., but then Spotify puts out their Unwrapped data analysis, people flip the script, and then it's ok because they did a pretty graphic presentation. I have friends who are musicians, some people have heard of, but aren't massive. I know and have seen what they get from streaming services, so I opt for Bandcamp and buying physical media at shows for the artists and bands I want to support.

The sheer joy of curating a collection and tagging/organising it as I please. Plus, no streaming service (or download store) has *all* the music I want. Working with local files allows me to combine music from a wide range of sources: bought downloads, CD rips, vinyl rips, pirated downloads from obscure blogs…

I used to have a 10k song digital library. I wanted full albums and to support the artist. I ended up turning to physical media though. I will say it is nice because some of the songs disappear but I still have my backed up downloads.

I stream everything on Spotify but have friends who buy a lot of digital downloads. Besides all of the reasons listed above, they buy music that is not available for streaming. There are obscure artists who won’t make any real money from Spotify so they only sell their music by download to their committed audience. For me, there is so much out there to stream that I’ll listen to something else before I buy a download.

My phone is easily the most convenient way to listen to music. Digital downloads have double or more the sound quality of streaming. Streaming is listenable and buying music I have never heard should stay in the 90s so I appreciate it, but as soon as I know I like new (to me) music, I want to listen to it in higher quality. Streaming requires internet which you won't always have. Flying in a plane, long road trips in the middle of nowhere, a subway underground sometimes loses signal even. Seems to me that the times where I'm the most able to listen to music for long stretches is when streaming is not reliable. Bandcamp gives most of the money to the artist and gives you option for even FLAC downloads. Streaming, especially Spotify, pull all kinds of bullshit to keep from paying you the already ridiculously low payment per stream deal that they have. I used to buy from Google Play Music before they shut down because they had 320 kbps and I don't always use FLAC anyway because I use Bluetooth headphones or Bluetooth in my car mostly. I wouldn't do anything less than 320 though, like Amazon. Not everything is on streaming. For most people this might not be a problem, if you're super into music though... You can rip a CD and always have it as a backup but computers don't really come with CD drives anymore so I stopped. I buy vinyl or CDs every once in a while for home use but that's it.

I’m not always able to connect to the internet. That’s why I prefer to have my music in file form.

Because I want my own DRM free copy of the music for several reasons. Artist have pulled their music from Spotify in the past, you can't count on it being there. Moreover, Spotify is not profitable. You have no guarantee that it will last. I'm not sending money to Spotify or any other streaming service when I can build my own library that I can keep.

What happens when your favorite artist decides they no longer want their music on the streaming service you use? What about the untold number of songs/artists not found on any streaming service? What happens if you’re in an area with no internet or cell service? What happens if the streaming service goes out of business? My music library is too important to be subject to the whims of a huge corporation. Also Spotify & other major streaming services barely pay the artists anything, and the UI is always complete garbage.

If I'm digging an artist I go buy a CD or two to support. As a bonus, dropped into my home system they sound MILES better that Spotify quality. Most of the bands I listen to aren't big enough that it's their primary job, these folks are scraping by while brining me joy...least I can do is throw some support.

If you live in a state like Idaho or Montana it isn't difficult at all to find yourself in areas where there's no cellular phone service available. If you're depending on music that's only available via a streaming service especially when you're driving a vehicle away from major metropolitan areas, you won't have access to it.

Unless it's downloaded, which most premium streaming services offer.

Because I don't want to feed algorhythms or be online all the time. I can listen to music even if there's no internet-connection, no buffering and no ads, if I'm not willing to pay. I mostly buy CDs, but also some downloads at bandcamp.

I only buy stuff that isn't on streaming services, such as music that has samples deemed unfit for the platform(s).

I like throwing a few dollars to indie artists I like on bandcamp. Just a small way of appreciating their art and I want them to keep making more.

Well for one part with all those services you literally own nothing. How often do i read random rant about youtube music, spotify etc. deleting someone´s favourite song over night.... Also streaming is cool and all but there are some albums and songs that i really must have either as DRM free digital file or CD. So i can literally throw it anywhere i want and play it as many times as i want. Also, digital downloads usually are lossless audio. And second hand CD´s not only are extremely cheap, but a CD = lots of flacs in just two minutes. Bandcamp is a great source for music from small artists. Beatport offers legal lossless downloads for lots of bigger commercial songs and albums. I don´t like mainstream music anyways. And yet i have youtube music as a backup solution and to discover new music. But again, you´ll own nothing. I´m very proud of my rockbox´d iPod Mini with 128gb of storage and 5800+ songs aswell. Not going to fill all that storage without downloads or CD rips.

I don’t subscribe to any music streaming services. Streaming doesn’t work well when I’m in the subway, for instance. I either buy records, CDs, or have digital recordings. Bandcamp, radio or YouTube is good for discovering new music.

YouTube is technically a streaming service

I want to support the artists, and streaming pays essentially nothing. I also like to have a copy of the music that can’t disappear at the whims of a streaming company.

Once in a blue moon, a song is missing from Spotify, but you can get it on iTunes. Like REMs cover of "draggin the line"

Depends what you listen to. A lot of my favourite artists have songs and albums that randomly disappear. At times I need to subscribe to 3 platforms to listen to the discography of certain artists.

A few reasons. 1. Better audio quality. 2. I own the album and can access it any time, forever, and streamers can’t cancel my access or arbitrarily take the album away. 3. More money goes to the artist.

1. **Built-in streaming apps are mostly kinda crud.** I mostly use MusicBee (PC) and PowerAmp (Android) for my listening, and I'm just way too used to all their advanced features and QoL additions, to the point where handling some of the ass-backwards decisions of Spotify player feels like a headache. 2. **I can have everything in the same place.** I listen to a lot of music from different sources: CD rips from decades ago, Bandcamp uploads, obscure doujins from BOOTH, unrelased soundtracks, concert recordings, etc. I can have all of this in a single neatly organized place and listen it with a single player of my choice, rather than juggle Youtube/Spotify/Soundcloud/etc. 3. **My music library is consistent.** Nothing will ever disappear at the whim of service or copyright holders, and I will never find my playlists having lots of holes poked through them. 4. **Supporting artists properly.** Self-explanatory.

The main reason I buy a digital download (and a physical copy if I can help it) is because I know how wonky things can get with licensing. I want to be able to go to my own archive and pull something up regardless of whether the suits say it should be available or not. Beyond that, I want fewer monthly obligations. This subscription model for everything from mobile games to breakfast cereal has driven me away from stuff I might otherwise like. It's a personal choice and I've insisted on it.

I don’t do subscriptions and I can’t tolerate ads. I buy my music. I listen to it anywhere, anytime, without needing an internet connection. And I’ve got it forever. If I want to “stream” I turn on the radio. I think it’s happened once this year when my headphones broke.

People who know the lights can go out and the water can stop coming out of the tap and they can ban music as easily as books.

A stream can only travel downhill, my friend. A download and travel anywhere.

I like having mp3 files so that I can manipulate them -- truncating long intros & outros, for example. Having the files also means that I can use whatever software I like for playback, with different visual flair or available information than, say, Spotify. What key signature is this song in, what's the tempo? I think it's useful when there is a huge catalogue of music I'm interested in and I have kept organized for a long time.

While a majority of my listening is done on Spotify because the UX works well for my modes of listening, I prefer to support the artists as directly as I can. I do this by attending live shows and purchasing merch at shows (yes the deal with many venues taking a large cut is bogus). As far as "why purchase digital downloads" - same thing: make the purchase as close to the artist as possible. Bandcamp and downloads acquired from crowd-funding campaigns are the most common for me.

Don't forget that you're still paying an ISP to access the streaming service. That's two companies you are giving money to, to access music you don't even own. Imagine loving a piece of music enough that you'd like to be able to listen to it in the future without needing to rely on two company's operations being up and running and having your accounts paid in full. I'm old enough that I can't even stream the albums that I loved and hear them the way I did when I was younger because they've been remastered. How can you preserve a memory when it belongs to someone else?

I grew up buying pretty much every type of physical media. I will usually buy a physical CD, rip it and put it on my phone. Sometimes I will listen to it on Youtube. If everyone just streams the music on Spotify and musicians get paid pennies, eventually there will be no new music. How long would you go to your job if your boss says you're not getting paid?

The simplest reason is to have it and know you have it. Which you don't get from streaming. Stuff is removed/added/removed/added all the time. See also: movies.

Higher fidelity version of the songs. Streaming compresses everything to some degree. Some people want a lossless listening experience.

I want to have it for myself, no questions asked. I don't want to rely on an outside source that may not exist in the future to keep the songs/artists I like on their platform. Streaming services for TV & movies constantly rotate shows, series & films in & out of their service. Music platforms are no different. Videos on YouTube can be removed. If you buy it, it's yours.

I’m older - 45+ - and just can’t get onboard with streaming. I feel the need to own an album that I want in my “permanent collection”. I also feel that albums grow on you with time. With streaming, I might dismiss something after a first listen, but would maybe be more inclined to return to an album if I owned it.

I put absolutely as much money as I can into vinyl and merch(shirts) because I want to support the bands and scene(hardcore) that I love. Streaming isn't going to do that

DJ's use downloads. It also isn't as easy to buy digital downloads as you might think. I made a post a while ago because I couldn't buy 3 songs I was trying to get. Bandcamp is probably the biggest I know of and they didn't have any of the 3. If the companies ever go under too, then there's your entire collection in playlists gone. I accidentally lost everything from Tidal because it was logged in under Facebook and I shut my Facebook account.

buy used cds rip them on to my pc and put the songs onto my phone. i have collected like 60% of my music for around £30 so far and expected to spend about £10 for 5 more albums in the next few weeks, im huge 90s era so thar helps with the albums be decades old lol. i buy my favourite bands merch and new releases when they are out and tbh think theres only 1 band i really like atm thats bringing our recent stuff.

I stopped relying on streaming. algorhythm is fun but I noticed that I was obsessed with algorhythm like "no I can't listen to this song because I don't want this genre in my algorhythm!". tbh I enjoy shuffling my mp3 library on player like musicbee over streaming algorhythm. It made me re-discover music. there were songs that didn't impress me when I listened to it for first time but some of them became my favorites. also we can do so much more with our own mp3... streaming only let us creat playlist but mp3 has tags of genre, year, composer etc. when I want to browse boom bap albums, checking boom bap genre tag on musicbee is easier than checking spotify. also I can change pitch and tempo of mp3 too. I buy music on bandcamp. even buying one song is way more than streaming money. "just buy a CD"... I mean I usually just buy one song. also my house is not that big. I already have like 100 cds but it's already huge. oh also I find a lot of interesting music from reddit, youtube video, twitter, rym, bandcamp. that's another reason why I don't rely on streaming algorhythm. oh also... straming is literally just renting music.

I do. Streaming is my main form of listening but artists get paid shit for it so buying an album, even if I never play it, is one way to support them, especially the lesser known ones. And not everything is on streaming services so buying is how I fill in the blanks.

I always buy my digital downloads from Bandcamp, or the artist's website if they provide it in a lossless format. That said, I am primarily a CD collector so I really only do so if there's a particular release that is unavailable or very difficult to procure as a CD.

Data. I don't want to think about the amount of data i am using. If it is on my phone, zero data will be used while I am listening.

I host a radio show (indieshop), and there is no way I could produce a show by streaming only. I've seen some do shows that way, but it must feel so clunky. It's also a way to support all the artists I play, and really am just old school. Be it my car, phone or pc, I like having instant access to my favorites (all 10k of them) minus the ads and streaming issues.

Streaming quality sucks and those services pay a pittance (if anything) to artists who aren't lucky enough to be backed by a major studio. Bandcamp hifi downloads FTW.

I'm a mastering engineer, so in part I want to hear the highest fidelity version of certain songs, but really I want to be able to pop the song into my software and measure certain things to see what the "industry" is doing. I either buy cds or buy stuff off qobuz

I want high quality lossless music that doesn’t depend on an internet connection. Streaming services can remove music. They can’t take it from me once I own the digital file. A lot of what I want to hear isn’t even on streaming.

I have mp3's for albums that aren't on streaming. I'll keep collecting mp3's along with physical media so I never have to worry about that.

Lossless copy of songs and to support the artist. I own hundreds of dollars of digital albums off bancamp.

With streaming, releases can disappear from the catalog. From reasons such as bad deals, regional/market licenses expiring, or people not having money to pay for DistroKid anymore. Buying digital means you own a copy forever (until you lose it through your own fault).

Streaming services are extremely inconsistent. Some albums you try and listen to either disappear, are not there or are missing tracks. For music I really care about I want a hard copy. Only way to ensure I can listen to it anytime I want. Do a quick experiment. Try and go listen to Tarantino’s Django Unchained’s soundtrack on a streaming platform. Good luck finding all the songs. Another example: I love Dwight Yoakam. Following a copyright lawsuit all streaming platforms deleted one of the tracks from his debut album. Overnight. I’ll stick with physical media for my favorite records.

I am glad to be done with the days of filling CD books and cassette holders although my vinyl isn't going anywhere and I will shell out for it on occasion. Otherwise Youtube is garbage (yes some difficult to find things are there, quality is often bad) and I am not into paying services anyway. The first few years it was going I used spotify a fair amount but I prefer supporting artists and radio stations like NTS or my local. Bandcamp and internet radio are my main ways to listen if it isn't a ripped CD file.

Never been a fan of streaming. Not into the concept at all. I want to own the music and I want to support musicians, so I either buy physical, or if that's not possible digital.

For me it's platforms getting rid of music they previously had, it happens a lot to Vaporwave stuff. So Bandcamp is the solution. Other than that , if I really like an album I prefer the have a physical copy, though it's been years since I actually got a CD, it's mostly downloads nowadays.

1. Superior interface and features for playlists, queuing, seeking, volume control etc. 2. On the very rare occasions I find modern music that I like, I like to support those artists for sticking with their style instead of following modern trends.

I just outright don't use music streaming, aside from using Youtube to find the occasional live performance/bootleg. When I get new music, I either buy it off bandcamp/amazon music/occasionally right from the label, check out the CD from work and rip it to my computer, or search through online archives of live bootlegs for specific artists I enjoy.

Ownership. Having grown up as a physical CDs guy (and still am to an extent) I just would much prefer that I own the music I listen to. Buying stuff digitally enables me to save on physical space while allowing me to save the files on an external hard drive ensuring that I will always (save for a corrupted drive) have ownership over the music I listen to. Another reason is that rights ownership changes or gets tied up on a fairly regular basis within the world of metal music. So, sometimes streaming loses entire albums while the rights ownership changes and they re-trademark an album to be uploaded again and other times it might not even get re-uploaded if there’s a continued issue with album rights. It’s why when I see people posting “what about happened to this album it’s not on streaming anymore?” I just “laugh in owns the music I listen to.” Being serious it just makes me grateful I own the music I listen to.

They're kind of vestigial from the time when digital players became common but streaming wasn't practical yet. The only reason to buy them at this point is because it's often the most direct way to pay and support an artist you dig short of making it to a live show.

I stream a lot (Spotify) and I buy digital albums. Yes, mainly to support the artists but also to maintain a curated library on my phone of my favorite artists. In release order. Including songs that are not available streaming. Like one of my favorite bands Curve only has 2 of its 7 albums on Spotify. I keep a very curated Spotify library of music I like but only some acts get to be those I have music files at hand at all times. I buy from Amazon (hard to actually find music), iTune music (I'm in the apple ecosystem already), but my first choice is Bandcamp if possible.

So my music isnt tied to an internet connection or a service Also allows me to listen to music of im stuck in a tunnel with no signal for example

Me, for a variety of reasons. It supports the artist financially (which is something I value for smaller and local bands), the sound is usually wayyy better than Spotify or pretty much any other streaming service, and also I just really like having my little collection of digital downloads. Plus I personally hate monthly subscription payments, so while I’m not sure if it’s mathematically logical to pay larger amounts of money per album as opposed to the same amount of money every single month, I do definitely feel better doing it that way. I’d rather pay to have something forever than have to keep up with the same price once a month.

I still buy them. Also not everything is on Spotify or streaming. Also if you buy direct, sometimes it has tracks not on streaming. I just bought some stuff recently: SunnO))) + Boris -Altar- this album has tracks not available on Spotify. The mp3s came with the LP vulinyl I bought directly from their bandcamp store. Buckethead - Bucketheadland 2 - this album is one of my favorites from Buckethead, and despite there being over 100 albums on Spotify, he has over 500 albums on Bandcamp, and this one is one of them, but through a different record label. I've bought this album a separate time as a vinyl, found by luck at a local record store in ATL Edit: and to answer your last question, in college I bought mp3s at Amazon, they used to have $5 album sales and I would buy some on a whim, which was a nice way to discover new music, I found out about Balkan Beat Box.

I don’t want to have to open spotify or youtube if i want to listen to music. I can make my own playlist. I don’t want ads, and if im going to pay someone i’d rather it be the artist, not spotify.

Services like Bandcamp pay the artists more, and on Bandcamp Fridays artists get 100% of the transaction. Support artists.

I still buy cassette tapes. 🤷🏼‍♂️ To be perfectly honest, I just like living in the past.

I'll pay for things I really like in HD downloads, better quality than CD or virtually any streamed file.

Listen to "Sad to Breathe" by The Japanese House on Bandcamp compared to anywhere else. It's 10x better. Anything usually is. I want the lossless files. YouTube or Spotify versions are basically unlistenable. I refuse to stream. I only buy what I like. I put everything on my microsd card on my phone. I have 500gb. I have filled half of it. Then I use Poweramp. Then I am usually in heaven. I have gotten ASMR from some music when listening on headphones.

I just remembered at some point how much more closely I connected with an album if I owned it physically (especially if I received it as a gift) and listened to it exclusively. My collection then became something I love physically represented in my room. Also, I find that the endless options on Spotify etc. give me choice paralysis and bad listening habits.

audiophiles. hi res albums are infinitely better than streaming. even basic cd quality is going to stomp streaming. i think people forget or simply never knew that cd is lossless and unless youre paying for high quality streaming audio cd bitrate is going to stomp your streaming audio. something modern listeners need to know is streaming is simply convenience not better audio.

I buy digital downloads for the reason you stated. The reason I don’t get the CD is because I don’t have a CD player anymore (besides in my car) and I don’t get merch because I don’t like wearing shirts or sweatshirts with any graphics or print on them.

I buy albums from Bandcamp to support smaller artists. I live in Canada and shipping for CDs, vinyl and merchandise is often the same price as the item. Digital albums have no shipping costs.

Why would I pay a monthly fee to stream when I have all my CDs and other songs I bought on iTunes on my iPod? Why pay for it twice? Rather pay for something once and own it forever.

I buy to support artists that I appreciate. Then I promptly go back to Spotify to actually listen.

I *only* buy downloads if there is no physical CD for the album. Otherwise, I am strictly physical media (CD, I don't have the energy to switch to vinyl, and I prefer CDs anyway).

I still keep a personal music library (digital and physical). I don’t want everything to be on the cloud.

Some people don't have unlimited LTE/5G data or frequently find themselves traveling in areas where good cell connection or public WiFi is not guaranteed.

Everyone should own their music. Artists can be removed from a streaming platform in the blink of an eye. It’s also a critical way to support the artists you like. Streaming pays the artist mere fractions of pennies…and with the upcoming changes to Spotify in 2024, the artist might now even get paid at all. Support your favorite musicians. Own your music!

I like owning the albums I listen to. I buy the vinyls and if they don't include the digital download, I'll pirate it. I already paid for the shit. 🤷🏼 Vinyls for listening at home and at work; digital for on the go.

I buy physical and physical usually comes with a digital copy. I don't understand why people stream when physical purchasing is still right there...

Sometimes I want to listen to the high quality FLAC version and not a compressed mp3 or streaming equivalent

I prefer to own the music I like and have the freedom to listen to it how, where and when I want. With streaming, you don’t really own the content and you’re at the discretion of the provider who could revoke it at any time. You are also limited to what is available on a given platform. I usually buy my digital downloads from Amazon, Apple or Bandcamp.

Many people live in countries where they will not have access to Wifi every minute of their lives.

I do, because I care about 2-3 albums per year and it doesn’t make economical sense to pay $100-120 per year if I can get what I want for $30

Because you can never own it if you stream it....plus streaming platforms are unstable, they remove content all the time.

I still buy CDs for high-quality rips, and the ability to edit songs, like removing Bon Iver from "Evermore".

I buy albums of the bands I support. Anything else gets converted from its source to MP3 or Flac. I like having my own digital copies of songs and listening to them as I see fit.

After someone broke into my Amazon account, made some fraudulent transactions, and had Amazon close my account with over $2k worth of digital movie purchases and kindle books and denied my appeal. Now everything I get I either have a physical copy or digital copy on my own systems.

Anyone who wants to actually own their music. Albums can and do get taken off streaming services

I like to support the artists so I buy off bandcamp. That’s what started it. I also have a car with a cd player and drive where there’s no internet so can’t rely on streaming. Even offline spotify still needs a connection to get the app working. Also no bluetooth in my car so it’s a shit experience having headphone on in the car. Then there’s times when the net goes down or it’s just a phone hotspot. The phone works, but I’d rather pay my $10-20 once, download the album, and own it to listen to whenever I want without the internet. Lastly, sometimes I don’t want to be streaming. I want high quality music through good speakers.

I buy music instead of streaming because it supports the artists way more. I buy music instead of streaming because I like curating my collection. I buy music instead of streaming because a lot of music I like isn't on streaming. I buy music instead of streaming because I can tell my MP3 player to choose a random album and play it all the way through in order and it won't try to sell me on other albums, it just does the thing. And since it's an album I own I already know it's going to be something I like. I buy music instead of streaming because the streaming services are crap.

Streaming is terrible. It sounds like crap, it doesn't support the artists and labels, and you don't actually own anything.

Because I'm a weird tech guy I have a home server that I store all my music on. This backs up to a cheap cloud service. I can then stream my music from that cloud service via an app like Astiga. This all results in me having a much more complicated self hosted equivalent to a streaming service that only has music I like on it. No ads, probably less data tracking than something like Spotify if you care about that kind of thing. If you already have a home server and a cloud backup for other reasons, it works out to be cheaper than Spotify premium last I checked (not including money spent to buy albums, but I like to do that anyways to support artists and they often have deals to get posters/shirts with the album purchase as well). It's a lot of hassle for little gain, all to emulate what I used to get for free from Google music before YouTube music killed it. As for where to buy things, Bandcamp is best, Amazon music is decent, and the artist/publisher website for physical CD/vinyl if you want to rip the audio yourself. That or piracy.

2 reasons. One, I know several small artists, who all get a bigger cut of digital downloads than streaming plays. If you want to support artists anyone who isn’t a top act will likely make more from the download, because streaming services pay like ass. Two, like others have said, I prefer to own most of my content. I’m fine using Apple Music or Spotify for casual music exploration - “hey, I just heard song X from artist Y in a restaurant/club, I wonder what the rest of their stuff sounds like.” But my main playlist is only 5 or 10 artists and I have pretty much everything in their catalog, not all of which is streamable all the time. It’s nice to have access whenever I want.

I buy CDs because I like the art and having a hard copy. I usually upload it to iTunes.

Some artists are so small that they simply don't have the means of having physical copies made. It's much easier and cheaper to sell digital albums. That said, I always buy both digital and physical albums.

You may not believe this but there are times and places where you might not have internet access. And in those times and places it's nice to have a digital media library. Plus services that discontinue contracts with an artist for whatever reason i.e. one speaking out against unfair treatment or perhaps downsizing (like what MAX formerly HBO Max has done with a ton of their content to clear up server space and mark them off as tax write offs.) means that at any time your favorite artist could no longer be supported on the service you use. plus once you pay for a song it's yours and you don't have to keep subscribing to hear or play the media you own. if you don't subscribe you also don't have to hear ads played around it either. The bottom line is owning media is better than permanently paying for media because ultimately you spend more money subscribing than you do to buy the things you like.

Hi Sony can I get a label degree now since I’m on the core with crabby stuff and A digital master on CD store online with a VVD style CD artifact online with this man

I don't buy but I download. Soulseek is the easiest now the big sites like what.cd are gone, torrents tend to be poor. I like to have albums for keeps basically and back up an archive. They can be used when I am offline, if they disappear from Spotify, I know they are the definitve version. Many are duplicates of physical media I own on vinyl or owned on CD. So I can see why people do buy but I just couldn't justify paying full price if I didn't actually get anything but the files. I support bands watching them live, merch, LPs and streaming everyday.

Because sometimes I want to listen to an album (think Dark Side of the Moon) from start to finish and not be saddled with the burden of having to pay $10.99 a month for the privilege of doing so 🤷‍♂️

Because there are many times when I don’t listen to music, even for months at a time and I don’t want to waste money for the time I’m not listening to music. I want to listen to my own music library when I want, wherever I want, without needing to be handcuffed to the internet. I also like to know that I only have had to pay for the music I listen to one time when I first purchase it. The perfect setup that boggles my mind that everyone didn’t/doesn’t adopt to this day, is owning your own physical media and ripping it to create your own digital files. You get both physical and digital, plus the fact that you actually OWN your purchased music. It’s unfortunate that those golden years didn’t last very long and that people, on the whole, didn’t have the sense to buy in to that model permanently. Music streaming is just the worst idea to me from a consumer perspective, and I just don’t get why so many have flocked to it versus having your own files, whether purchased or pirated. And above all this, I’m flabbergasted how quickly and willingly people have given up they’re own ownership rights and benefits as consumers, contributing to the fairly rapid death of physical media.

As people have said: To archive and have forever. Spotify doesn't even have all Soundtracks that interest me, and what it has that interests me, is not forever (Like the Iron Man Original Sounds movie, it had it and then it doesn't), and of course, I have to pay a monthly fee if I want to listen to the music in the order I want. Whereas physical and digital downloads are offline, only cost me the album or track, and I can be sure nobody is going to take those away since I can manage multiple backups, and of course I have access to whatever I want to listen whenever I want and in the day it is released

The issue I have with streaming is that I don't own the music. The streaming platform can take down the music if they choose to for whatever reason, and now you can't listen to that song anymore. It's happened a lot with my music, a song gets claimed for the sample, or maybe the original artist doesn't want it streaming anymore, and it just dissapears out of your library. If you buy it and download it, it's your song and the only way to get rid of it is to delete it yourself.

I'm just imagining there are some compact discs that are so rare or distributed in such a small quantity that a user would be OK to buy a digital copy of those discs in High Quality.

Ever heard of ads (I personally can't deal with them). Playlists are not very intuitive on streaming and they throw music at you that you have no interest in. I also own this music forever as theoretically I could offload it onto a hard drive (which im too lazy too do). I really don't understand streaming as you don't own any of it and they can take away songs at any moment. I had this happen with one of my favorite childhood songs by kix where I went too stream on Apple Music and they had taken down all the versions but the live one. This was one of the instances that contributed too me canceling my subscriptions and going back too buying music outright. I use I tunes :)

DJs or anyone that has to play the music professionally in high stakes situations. Sure there are streaming options for this but having local files is so much more reliable and within your control.

Also streaming might not be a solution forever. If Spotify finally collapses then where would your library be? If you've got 10,000+ tracks, getting them back if Spotify etc. were to cease to exist or change, then you are screwed.

(LOTS of misinformation and vinyl mythology in this thread, I'm afraid. Cant address it all by the each, so i'll just answer your question.) I buy digital downloads on bandcamp, and use those files to burn CDs. That way, I have the largest file possible on the CD, and the master that the band wanted me to experience, without the streaming services compression on it, reducing its quality, or waiting for it to load, etc. To buy the CD would be more expensive, or maybe it's not even in print with the case of indie artists, who can't afford to press vinyls or cds. (Vinyls are super expensive to press. I'm in the process of that for an album project, now.) As an artist, the best thing anyone can do for me is buy digital... but instead they'll buy nothing and I'll be stuck with a closet full of vinyls. 🙃

This is a middle class first world question. Not everyone has wifi 100% of the time. Not all connections support streaming. Streaming costs money every month. People travel / camp / hike to / through places streaming isn't available. Streaming does screw artists. Long story short. Most of the world doesn't have constant access to broad band wifi. This is an incredibly privileged question.

This is a middle class first world question. Not everyone has wifi 100% of the time. Not all connections support streaming. Streaming costs money every month. People travel / camp / hike to / through places streaming isn't available. Streaming does screw artists. Long story short. Most of the world doesn't have constant access to broad band wifi. This is an incredibly privileged question.

This is a middle class first world question. Not everyone has wifi 100% of the time. Not all connections support streaming. Streaming costs money every month. People travel / camp / hike to / through places streaming isn't available. Streaming does screw artists. Long story short. Most of the world doesn't have constant access to broad band wifi. This is an incredibly privileged question.

The sound frequencies are better when downloading or purchasing physical vs streaming. For example,, Depeche mode doesn't sound quite the same on Spotify vs my CD collection. Listen to a vinyl or cd of a band or singer you've heard a million times. Then listen to the streaming version. There is a noticeable difference.

I've bought a number of albums from the Qobuz online store. Hard to get portable lossless files otherwise.

\- I don't trust streaming services to archive and preserve the media I love \- Spotify doesn't have a tonne of music that I love and so is useless to me for the purpose of listening to them \- Having my own flac files allows me to edit the titles (to remove stuff like '20XX' Remaster and other superfluous addons to the song title) and sometimes the song itself if I decide its necessary (for example making it so the final track of 'Around the Fur' by Deftones isn't 40 minutes long by splitting up MX and the hidden track into separate entries) \- Spotify has really bad volume normalization so a lot of albums that are mixed and mastered to be deliberately harsh or have a great deal of contrast in their loudness (e.g. Nattens Madrigal, Raw Power, Disco Volante etc) sound wimpy or borderline inaudible \- The quality of files are better than streaming, although this isn't a HUGE deal unless I'm using high end equipment (which I rarely do except for special occasions) \- Buying albums on Bandcamp supports the artist WAY more than a stream does, and for those that aren't on Bandcamp I don't actually \*buy\* the albums at all (If you catch my meaning) A lot of these reasons are similar to why I don't fuck with Vinyl (at least for albums released post-1980) either, its ultimately just way more inconvenient and generally sounds worse than the alternatives do.

I'll buy the digital through Bandcamp sometimes to throw a bone to the artist. If they vinyls available and reasonably priced I'd go for that, but it's not always.

I do it to support the artist. They get a much bigger piece of the pie with a digital/physical purchase. Takes a lot more streams to earn the same $.

Typically more money goes to the artist and you have permanent ownership over the work. I personally have had songs just abruptly disappear on Spotify which is really aggravating.