F it, I'm Done With Streaming
I'm addicted to music. I get squirrelly if I go too long without putting something on. I was also born in the '80s, so I've grown up and lived with a concept of collecting music.
I have a handful of cassettes, an intense number of CDs, and a silly amount of vinyl records. I also have an unthinkably large digital collection from ripping CDs, sailing the high seas, and retaining purchases from the web (notably: Bandcamp).
While I love the idea of being able to instantly call up nearly any popular Western song from the last 60-some years, it's never sat well with me that we pay some company a fee to access, but not own a copy of, these songs. Why should this third party reap a huge profit off the backs of artists and users, while paying artists streaming royalties worth a fraction of a cent? It's just another shitty business cashing in on artists' work and gatekeeping music as a commodity that they own and lease to you for a monthly fee.
So, with my huge collection of music that I actually own and have access to wherever I go, through the miracle of technology, I bid adieu to streaming.
Photo by Elza Kurbanova on Unsplash