There has been a noticeable uptick this year in the number of bloggers encouraging their readers to quit Spotify. This makes sense, as there are plenty good reasons to quit Spotify (ranging from its failure to pay artists fairly to its CEO’s reprehensible decision to invest in an AI military startup). What I don’t get, though, is why so many bloggers are promoting supposedly “better” streaming alternatives instead of encouraging us to consider leaving music subscription services behind entirely.
It took me a while to come around to this point of view (I myself only quit Spotify earlier this year), but here it is: streaming music sucks for almost everyone involved. I believe we only do it because we’ve allowed ourselves to be convinced that renting music indefinitely is cheaper than purchasing it outright – especially since streaming companies grant us the equivalent of an all-you-can-eat buffet with our subscriptions.
Streaming is cheaper than owning, but it depends on your use case, and what you’re paying. I use Apple One, which includes Apple Music. I pay for the family plan, it’s around $30 a month, but it covers four people and I have two open spots, so it could be covering six people (me and five others). That’s $5 a month and that includes Apple Arcade, Apple TV, and 200GB (shared) of iCloud. It’s a pretty good deal.
On the other hand, I listen to a lot of music over and over. I’ve bought music over the years and I have it backed up, and I have a Plex server, and I have the ability to access my music from any machine I’m comfortable logging into. At work, I use a free Plex account I share to. (My main account is paid and I don’t want anyone getting access to that account since it’s so easy to delete the account from settings.) I try to buy music I really like, so I know I’ll have access to it as a backup plan. But here’s the thing: it’s not strictly legal to share music you legally own. So when I buy music, it’s not like I can “legally” share it with my family plan. But, the truth is, I’ve built my Plex library by collecting family members’ digital music and video over the years, so I give them access to the server. With Apple Music, they’d be listening legally. On Plex… it’s kind of a “don’t ask don’t tell” situation. Like yes you can just borrow my DVD, or stream it via Plex, and as long as I’m not also using it, it falls under fair use, but it’s dicey at best.
I also have a few really big playlists of songs I like. One from the 80s, one from the 2000s, and another is Japanese rock. I also have one of 90s music. There’s no really easy way for me to “own” these playlists. Each one contains over 300 songs, so I’d have to buy each song individually, and that would clutter up my library so much. I like having songs in a playlist, so I can just play the 80s playlist, but people who I only have one or two songs by (say, Rick Astley — hey, I liked “Never Gonna Give You Up” YEARS before it was a meme, and it continues to be a banger; the other is “Together Forever”; or Limahl, the artist who does the Never Ending Story theme… or Ray Parker Jr who sings "Ghostbusters), I don’t want them in my library to only have a couple songs, but I want them in the playlist.
Even if I had a way to fully back up all the stuff I listen to on Apple Music, I’d probably still pay for it. There are better streaming services as far as who pays artists the most (I think that’s Napster, actually, ironically) and ethics (not Apple, due to their support of the US president), but I use Apple tech and the integration is pretty nice. So it’s more of a “good all around” service. I wouldn’t say it’s the best. But I did have Spotify Family, and my wife almost never touched it, opting for Pandora and local music instead. When I got the Apple Music family plan, despite never owning an iPhone, my wife began using Apple Music every day. (Apple Music is available for Android.) So they must be doing something right. The other family members I have on the plan are on Apple devices. So it’s a good fit, people don’t need to download another app. The service I pay for just enhances the apps we already have installed.
Personally I am an advocate for owning your own music, and I’ve been doing that for decades. I’m also an advocate for artists getting paid, and to my lay person’s knowledge, they get the most money from live shows. I’m too old for concerts, but I like to go out to local shows every now and then. Check out local scenes, whether I’m from the area or not. They make the next highest amount from merchandise, so buy their expensive shirts at the venue, not from the guy in the parking lot who knows a screen printer. Then from CDs, with artists making about a buck per disc sold, more or less. Streaming is much lower. Apple Music pays like 4x more per stream than Spotify, but Spotify has more than 10x more subscribers than Apple Music does, so Spotify is writing bigger checks.
So I suppose the real answer is… use what works for you.