Except you can do this with Spotify.

https://support.spotify.com/is/using_spotify/features/listen...

> I can't mix my paid-for (ripped) CDs and paid-for MP3s/AACs with streams in one app

It's not an optimal solution, but iTunes can import songs from CDs, and you can add other mp3s to your library, but it doesn't cloud sync across devices.

Another solution is Google Play Music, which can import your iTunes library (and CDs indirectly from iTunes) and does do cloud sync.

Google Music allows exactly this. You upload all the stuff you own and have ripped yourself. Then, you can listen to that without paying. If you subscribe, you can build playlists and what not that include any song either from your library or their global library. Pretty neat.

I do this with Apple Music.

Apparently almost the entire musician-as-a-middle-class has been wiped out since the internet and streaming got big. Jaron Lanier talks about it fairy often: now, almost everything goes to the top earners.

This is a fair point. The one who is most vocal about Spotify does not make her living (entirely) from her music in the first place. It would be most accurate to say Spotify has had no effect.

> The actually popular artists make great money

Is this so? As I recall, Spotify pays tenths of a U.S. cent per stream. The gross payout for a million streams is a few thousand dollars.

Personally it's the freedom that I enjoy more. For example I have 400 songs into my Christmas playlist. There's so many duplicate, like Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas is there 9 times, but it's fun to have the different versions. Sure it would be fine to have 2-3 albums of Christmas, but then I would have to choose and there would be less diversity.

It's also amazing to discover stuff and follow new paths. Sure you could try to buy a random new album during a month, but that would be your whole exploration for that month, I could explore many more albums in a day. Right now I listen to a lot of a cappella group because of a good Pentatonix song I heard a few days ago.

I also enjoy just being able to listen to any CD. When I heard about A star is born, I was curious and I just had to open Google Music to listen to it, without paying more.

Would 12 CD a year would be enough to entertain myself? Yeah I have no doubt, but it wouldn't allow me to discover to having that much freedom.

For me it's much more than "I could buy CDs". A sub to Apple Music for example lets me go on musical journeys.

I listened to the many versions Vivaldi's 4 seasons the other day and enjoyed hearing how different orchestras performed. I have taken a dives into 80s rap/hip hop, or hair bands, or whatever else strikes me.

Those types of exploration were not possible in the days on only buying CDs.

This is genre specific, and artist's popularity specific. I listen to a lot of smaller bands whose tours are almost never less than 2-3 hours from me. Plus, I don't really care for concerts anymore.

I'd rather just buy the album.