Have we been wasting our money on streaming?

With all music at the touch of the button, what benefits can we find in turning down the tap of streaming? One music lover explores the advantages and disadvantages of unlimited music.

by guest writer Kendall Burke

$800 and nothing to show for it.

That’s how much I have paid to Spotify, and only pennies of it have gone to the musicians who have been crafting the soundtrack of my life. If I stopped my Premium account tomorrow, I would have paid over $800 and be left with nothing, no music library.

With the recent Spotify price increase having recently gone into effect, basic memberships are now at $11.99 per month for unlimited streaming, no ads, and the ability to download music onto your devices. But after crossing the $12 threshold, reality has finally shaken me enough to finally answer the question, am I better off buying my music instead of streaming it?

The decision to cut your music streaming service (no matter which one) may seem daunting to the casual, habitual, or hardcore music listener. Streaming is how we listen to music now. Even when we don’t have wifi or cell service, we can still be comforted by the selection of downloaded songs on our accounts. But, in anticipation of the next inevitable price hike, will you have the guts to say no and stop paying the fee? Of course not! How will you listen to music? (What am I supposed to do, listen to my own thoughts?) Because for all the hours you spent carefully crafting your playlists, liking songs, and trying to figure out how you have two copies of the same album in your library, the second you say “no more streaming”, you have nothing left.

Math for Music Lovers

Of course it didn’t use to be this way, and not so long ago we would happily shell out $12 for a whole album that we could listen to rain or shine, on our computer, phone, iPod, or even CD or record player. On the iTunes store, you can buy a brand new album from Taylor Swift, one of the most popular music artists today, for only 3 more dollars than your monthly Spotify fee. You can buy a 5 year old Swift album for the exact same price as your monthly Spotify fee. And you can listen to those songs as many times as you want, essentially, for the rest of eternity.

Now this might seem like terrible math. $11.99 for (pretty much) all the music in the world, or $11.99 for only 18 songs (I’m using Lover as the example here). Music fans would surely have to scoff, because more is more and finding the newest, nichest artist makes you a cool music-head instead of a simpleton who happens to enjoy listening to the same album from the ’90s over and over and over again. But even if you could listen to every song on the platform in a month, why would you do that? Music is a medium prime for repeat listens, and it’s in repetition that favorites are found and cemented. The song morphs from being an unknown sonic entity to being as essential to your identity as the cells in your body.

I started my Spotify account in 2016 and sometime in 2017 I went premium, so up until July 2023, I was shelling out $9.99 for unlimited music. However, I have never listened to unlimited music. While I made efforts to branch out of my favorites, I will always have my ride-or-dies. I’ve given Spotify over $800 since 2017, and if I finally said I’ve had enough, I would be left in possibly the worst place of all – without a music library.

If I had instead bought music every month, at around the same price (for convenience sake, let’s say I only spent up to Spotify’s monthly amount, so $10 a month up until July 2023, and $11 a month until July 2024), I could have give or take 84 albums in a permanent music collection, perfectly safe from a handful of apocalypse situations.

This math is probably not convincing enough, but I find something endearing in the idea of slowing down and being intentional about your consumption. If you only could buy one new album every month with your hard earned money, you would have to be more discerning, and recognize that sometimes you might make a bad choice.

To Stream or Not to Stream?

Looking back at my personal music habits, I would probably be better off buying my music. For one, I don’t actually use Spotify’s discovery features nearly enough to argue that Spotify helps me discover new music. I can count on one hand the amount of times I listened to their recommendations, and probably less the amount of times I actually liked it enough to put into a semi-regular rotation. I find YouTube, friends and family, movie soundtracks, and tracing my favorite artist’s inspirations a more reliable and interesting way to find new music. (I am also a crumudgeon who hates being forcibly recommended things). And two, the most important thing, is once I love a song or album, there is nothing stopping me from listening to it every day for the rest of my life. So yes, I am a music lover, even if I don’t listen to all the new music that comes out every Friday.

I don’t want to inflate my experiences with everyone else, because I know there are plenty of people who can enjoy music more with streaming services than with dusty CDs. But maybe you are one of those who might be just fine without it. For example if:

You listen to a lot of music from pre-streaming times, when nearly all newly released music was available for digital download or in physical form. Bonus! Older titles may be cheaper than a monthly due to streaming.
You listen to the same songs over and over again. When you find an album you like, it’s yours forever. Go crazy. Spotify can’t call you out for it in their Wrapped anymore.
You want to support your favorite artists and you already have enough band tees.

You are a home body. Maybe with enough space for some CDs too. If not, buy a refurbished iPod (or refurbish it yourself). Enjoy the clacking of CD cases and the scroll of a iPod touch wheel.

There is, of course, the ethical quagmire of streaming services. Spotify’s own CEO has repeatedly made statements that befuddle the most ardent streaming supporter and infuriate the music lover. Most notably, streaming pays fractions of pennies to the artists.

The rise of streaming in all media formats has pushed an agenda of consuming more and always searching for the next new thing, only to forget it a week later for the even newer next thing. Movies, music, books–there is so much out there, and for so little money we have access to most, if not all of it. But just because you have access to everything, doesn’t mean you need to feel pressured to enjoy everything.

And even if you decide to keep your streaming service, don’t let the abyss of options drown out what you love. You’re not any less of a music fan if you spend your time listening to every note, every lyric, enjoying the song you’re listening to instead of thinking about the one that is next.

•• ••