I agree with you on "makes you spend more and more money and attention on stuff you don't really need" but sadly this is just sometimes we have to live with and learn to control on our own or with the help of the market. Is like junk food or any other byproducts of capitalism that might not be good for us. They are not going away. We have to learn to live with them (more self-control, regulation to make it less addictive, reducing usage). As with other things capitalism, eventually an industry will grow to tackle this, it will be like Ozempic but for people with short attention spans low self-control.
Regarding your "you simply don't own anything". Leaving aside the financial aspect of it, this is a purely philosophical matter. You could say that owning and streaming are means to experiences. You have more individual control over one than the other. But at the end of the day, for most people, not being able to have a say on whether they can access a given movie or song is not a big deal. Mass media is mostly a commodity. And especifically a commodity they are happy to pay someone else to manage. Sure, a pop artist might remove her music but there is thousands of other pop artists there. You can replace pop for any niche style you might fancy. If you are one of those who finds a specific media artifact not a commodity, then you have the ability to acquire and preserve a copy of that artifact. That carries its own problems of course (loss, corruption, access issues, reliability, etc).
In the age of internet, if Spotify collapses, a competitor will fill the market with pretty much the same functionality. Makes no difference to you. A company removing a song or a movie from your service means you have to search for it in the bay of the pirates instead of your favourite streaming service. Either way, you will have access to it.
When folks talk about owning your email server or having your own customised OS. Most people are not interest in the benefits that the ownership entails and are happy to pay directly or indirectly for a third party to manage it for them. The things people care about are the same as 2000 years ago. Their friends, their family, their love life, their work. The consequences of ownership of media ranks very low in the vast majority of the population.
Ownership is a pretty practical and obvious thing. It is either mine to use/do whatever I want with it or it is not. Whether it's a car or a piece of media. So I can't agree with you here. Yeah, a vinyl is much less important than an apartment, but it doesn't change the concept of owning something.
As for the rest. The issue I see with the subscription approach is exactly what you described. People start getting used to it in other domains other than media consumption. Like cars for example, car brands introducing subs to enable your seat warmers or whatever that technically is already there, but for you to use it you have to subscribe. It's a matter of time this starts spread everywhere. And when it does there will be people who will come up with a number or reasons why it is actually fine and everybody should just go with it.
The way I see it is like this: a lot of media is like books. People mostly use them to read once and that's it. So there is no difference between buying a book or taking a copy from the library. If you are planning on doing more than that, then ownership benefits might be more relevant. Yes, if you buy a book you can do whatever you want but will you actually do anything other than reading the book? For most people, when it comes to mass media, the answer is a resounding no. Unused freedom is closer to a concept than a tangible thing for most people and paying for that is like paying for vaporware in that sense.
If you were a writer, then books might be different to you. Or if you were a record collector, records might be a different.
Yes, it becomes problematic when people apply that attitude everywhere but sadly it is likely where we are heading with all the consequences it will carry. Most people are addicted to convenience and will sell everything to attain it
>Ownership is a pretty practical and obvious thing. It is either mine to use/do whatever I want with it or it is not.
You're repeating this benefit -- and it is an undeniable benefit -- but the other issue you're not giving any weight is that other people have other priorities that can be more important than ownership -- such as a finite amount of money to spend.
Of course, ownership is wonderful -- IF it doesn't cost more, and IF it doesn't cause more inconvenience, an IF it's even available. In other words, the concept of ownership can't be considered only in isolation.
I know all about ownership as I have over 2000 CDs that I legally purchased and ripped losslessly to FLAC files using custom scripts. Would I recommend "music ownership" like that to most others who have a casual relationship with music? No. The Spotify subscription with access to 100 million songs is much cheaper and a better financial deal for most regular listeners than buying individual CDs or individual songs at 99 cents at a time from the iTunes store.
Does my 4TB harddrive of full of *.flac files that I own let me "do whatever I want with it?!?" Well... it's not a simple "yes". E.g. My friend's music streaming subscription lets her instantly load up any of the 100 million songs to listen at the gym. On the other hand, my iPhone doesn't have access to my entire music library because it only has 256 GB of space. I guess I could somewhat duplicate the "streaming" aspect if I go through the trouble to set up some Plex media server with a vpn TailScale or Cloudflare Tunnel back to my home computer. But now I get into the realm of "my music CDs owning me" instead of the other way around. I have paid over $20k in music CDs ownership to have less convenience and usability. So others paying $11.99/month for more music than my personal library with more convenience to play on any device doesn't seem so ridiculous.
But can't Spotify raise the subscription from $11.99 to $13.99 on a whim? And can't they remove Taylor Swift from their catalog without warning because of a licensing dispute?!? All true. But those negatives are outweighed by the positives of cheaper price, more music, more convenience.
Ownership is not the be-all-end-all. It's only one aspect of experiencing music.
I have conflicted feelings about all the money I spent on owning CDs and vinyl records. But then again, I didn't consider other options as I did all that ripping 20 years ago before the existence of Spotify and mobile phones.
I get your point in a way. If we get into details of owning different stuff, then yeah, there are pros and cons of this and that.
Btw, I actually set up a server using Raspberry Pi with 1TB of storage for my music collection to be able to access it from anywhere. Funny that you mentioned exactly this case.
Can I ask why you wouldn't use a cloud provider for that? Just curious. If I had a music collection, I would have set up similar to yours along with a linked service to constantly review global trends and check new music that I might like as about 20-60% of the music I listen every week is new relative to previous weeks
I'm not a heavy listener. Most of the time I prefer silence. So I just wanted my music to be accessible when I need it.
As for the recommendations, occasionally I listen to the bandcamp feed. Not even sure if it's based on my followings. And before that I was using one specific forum to learn about new stuff. It's not there anymore. And I don't like the idea of algorithms telling me what to listen to.
Regarding your "you simply don't own anything". Leaving aside the financial aspect of it, this is a purely philosophical matter. You could say that owning and streaming are means to experiences. You have more individual control over one than the other. But at the end of the day, for most people, not being able to have a say on whether they can access a given movie or song is not a big deal. Mass media is mostly a commodity. And especifically a commodity they are happy to pay someone else to manage. Sure, a pop artist might remove her music but there is thousands of other pop artists there. You can replace pop for any niche style you might fancy. If you are one of those who finds a specific media artifact not a commodity, then you have the ability to acquire and preserve a copy of that artifact. That carries its own problems of course (loss, corruption, access issues, reliability, etc).
In the age of internet, if Spotify collapses, a competitor will fill the market with pretty much the same functionality. Makes no difference to you. A company removing a song or a movie from your service means you have to search for it in the bay of the pirates instead of your favourite streaming service. Either way, you will have access to it.
When folks talk about owning your email server or having your own customised OS. Most people are not interest in the benefits that the ownership entails and are happy to pay directly or indirectly for a third party to manage it for them. The things people care about are the same as 2000 years ago. Their friends, their family, their love life, their work. The consequences of ownership of media ranks very low in the vast majority of the population.