Ah, what to do about music. I like music. I've joked that different companies I've worked for owe The Black Crowes or The Sounds or Metric or Halestorm -- or, in extreme periods of lethargy, Rob Zombie -- for 30% of my productivity while I worked there. I listen to music while working more often than not, and there's no perceivable detraction from my ability to be "in the zone". Music has been only a positive wrt productivity.

In other words, I consume music. Lots of music. Often lots of the same music. I have a "morning" playlist that I play through at least partially a quarter to a third of my working days.

Is a subscription right for me?

The Selfish Caveat

So look, there are lots of reasons not to carry a subscription. One is that the people who make the music don't seem to get as much of the dough from streaming as an outright purchase. That's bad.

You might also like supporting your local record store so that these experts can continue giving you good recommendations. Or maybe you just like 'em as people. Or maybe you really enjoy perusing physical artifacts. It's a particularly relaxing experience for some. Buying music allows your local store and employees to keep some cash too.

But I'm going to be really selfish below, ignoring these "altruistic" sorts of bonuses, for now.

Argument for buying your music

The argument against subscription is my "morning playlist" argument. If the music you listen to doesn't churn a ton, why not buy?

If you're spending less than or equal to a monthly subscription price on new music, it's a no-brainer.

If you buy your music, you're buying an asset... of sorts. Maybe you can't technically share it with anyone, but you have a never-ending license to listen to your music, and if you ever did stop your monthly buying, you still have your entire collection of favorite tunes.

Having a perpetual license for music without any ongoing fee is very good!

Argument for renting/subscribing

But what if you're buying is equal to or greater than a monthly unlimited music subscription every month? Now we've got an issue. If you're spending that much every month and you're absolutely sure you won't stop buying music for your entire life, well, a subscription makes sense.

There are, of course, risks.

What if your streaming service dies off?

Well, as long as any service is in business, you're fine. As long as both services are unlimited and the catalogs are essentially the same, all you really stand to lose are playlists, etc. That stinks, but you don't lose the music.

I guess at some point music subscriptions could go the way of the 8-track. It's a real possibility. That's a Worst Case for this choice, of course. Consider it.

What if the price goes up?

I don't find this super likely. If the services are $10 a month now and you're spending $15 a month on music, I bet both numbers go up at give or take the same rate. But this could happen. Spotify and Apple and friends could go to $35 a month in a cash-grab after feeling they'd killed off music purchases. It's a risk, though I wonder how likely.

What if I stop listening to new music when I'm old?

That's possible, and, like term life insurance, not whole, you don't get that subscription money back. It's burnt. You're not building an asset. You have to be into the subscription whole hog, for life, or you're potentially losing money.

But the counterargument is that you got to listen to so much more music than you would've if you'd purchased a small subset, your life was better for it. ;^) I mean, you have a copy of REM's Automatic for the People, but when's the last time you listened to it? (It's not that bad. Maybe you should. But you get the point.) If you're not going to listen to your old music and a subscription helps you discover new music with no serious opportunity cost (the opportunity cost being REM mp3s gathering dust bits on your cloud drive somewhere), well, who wins? (The subscriber, that's who. Probably.)

Winner?

Oh, okay. Fine. I still buy music. But I cheat. I have Amazon Prime, and hog the single license to stream from there when I'm working, using it to discover new music. This has also suckered me into buying lots of my digital music from Amazon, as their player mixes purchases in well with their subscription service in the player, meaning I don't have any (many?) files on my work box, but can still access playlists via streaming. And I use Spotify with ads to listen to new music to see if I like a new album before buying if the music isn't on Prime.

But I'm probably getting close to wanting to buy three or four albums a month, and, at some point, maybe it's worth trading one album purchase a month to also have adless streaming. (The ads do kill my productivity a bit. And they're annoying.) Though, currently, knowing I have to stay under $10/month to easily justify purchases is probably putting a ceiling on those purchases... that may or may not total a little above $10 a month. I'm also a sucker for releases on cassette for some reason. Ah Bandcamp. You're killing me.

So trick question, I guess. The answer isn't buy or rent for me, it's buy and rent and listen to ads.

But this Circle K ad during a Green Leaf Rustlers album is making me reconsider.

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