A couple of years ago, I had a Napster subscription (the reborn, legal variant of it). At first, I was happy to have unlimited access to music, then after 2 years I realised that I was paying 120 EUR a year for music I’ll never own, so I cancelled the subscription and put my yearly budget for music to exactly that amount. It yields more than enough given I buy used CDs, and then digitalise them. That way I own the physical media as backup AND am able to transfer the digital, PCM-quality tracks unfettered across my devices AND with no need for DRM or shitty proprietary applications.
I’ve been a Spotify member for 13 years and it gives me exactly what I want. Owning music is good and all, but ripping the CDs and setting it up so my family and I have access to it where ever we go is going to cost me way more than the subscription does a month, in both time and money.
I run Navidrome off a free small form factor PC recycled from work. My whole family accesses it via whatever app they like that supports Subsonic API (there’s dozens), and for security it’s only accessible via Tailscale, so they need Tailscale installed and connected.
Initial cost: $0. Plus cost of the apps, which is like $5 each user. Tailscale is free for up to 100 devices.
Time to set up: 1 day.
Ongoing cost: the very little electricity an energy-efficient SFF PC uses - way overestimating would be $2/month. Plus whatever music we buy on Bandcamp, physical etc that we own forever.
So it’s not way more expensive in my experience, and at the end of the day I give artists I enjoy much more money than Spotify streams ever would, and I’m not supporting a piece of shit CEO pouring a billion dollars into military spending.
A couple of years ago, I had a Napster subscription (the reborn, legal variant of it). At first, I was happy to have unlimited access to music, then after 2 years I realised that I was paying 120 EUR a year for music I’ll never own, so I cancelled the subscription and put my yearly budget for music to exactly that amount. It yields more than enough given I buy used CDs, and then digitalise them. That way I own the physical media as backup AND am able to transfer the digital, PCM-quality tracks unfettered across my devices AND with no need for DRM or shitty proprietary applications.
You gotta put in the effort, which most people are too lazy to do
Is it laziness or a lack of motivation?
I’ve been a Spotify member for 13 years and it gives me exactly what I want. Owning music is good and all, but ripping the CDs and setting it up so my family and I have access to it where ever we go is going to cost me way more than the subscription does a month, in both time and money.
deleted by creator
Right, but you would own the music…
I run Navidrome off a free small form factor PC recycled from work. My whole family accesses it via whatever app they like that supports Subsonic API (there’s dozens), and for security it’s only accessible via Tailscale, so they need Tailscale installed and connected.
Initial cost: $0. Plus cost of the apps, which is like $5 each user. Tailscale is free for up to 100 devices. Time to set up: 1 day. Ongoing cost: the very little electricity an energy-efficient SFF PC uses - way overestimating would be $2/month. Plus whatever music we buy on Bandcamp, physical etc that we own forever.
So it’s not way more expensive in my experience, and at the end of the day I give artists I enjoy much more money than Spotify streams ever would, and I’m not supporting a piece of shit CEO pouring a billion dollars into military spending.