When you have a subscription to music, it's not about your collection as much as it is about discovery. You hear about a new artist and you want to sample their stuff. You don't have to hunt it down - you know where to find and listen to their entire discography in exactly two clicks (not counting having to type in the name of the band). If you decide you like it, nothing is stopping you from buying an album for your collection if that's your thing. Also, instead of your budget of one $10-$15 purchase per month, you can do this process multiple times a day.

I used to own a lot of albums and CDs. Worked in a music store, and would get new albums often. Even after that, music was... a big part of life. As I got older, I got fewer albums, as other things took precedence.

I subscribed to Spotify about 7 years ago, and... I'm spending about what I might otherwise spend on 'albums' now (maybe one per month) and I get a lot more - back catalogs, for one. But discovery and sampling are the biggest 'wins' for me. Might switch to apple music at some point, but probably 95% of what I want is now streaming, and the utility/affordability balance is fine for me.

Was cleaning out a room last night and found a couple boxes of old CDs and tapes. In that box of 50+cds, there were 3 I know aren't on any streaming service, as they were special 'bonus' things in specific box sets from the 90s. And I still have them, just nothing outside my car to listen to them on. And given that I haven't opened that box in 15 years... my life has been OK without using those specific CDs.

I really enjoy being able to find other versions of the same song, exploring some new genres that I would never have bothered to spend $12-$15 on otherwise, and finding some new artists (found Real Estate, which then led to all the 'related' artists, and they're all now part of my music life). Family or friends recommend some new band, I can take a listen in a few seconds, add it to a list if I want, and usually find something I like about many artists.

Spotify is, let’s say, $120 a year. After 10 years, let’s say $1200. If an album has 5 songs, and an album costs $12.00 (dunno, middle of your range plus easy math), you can buy 100 albums in that time. 500 songs.

After 500 songs for 10 years, your model costs more and offers no value (in fact, it’s less convenient for a dozen reasons)

I don’t know about you, but I listen to way more than 500 songs… a year. Let alone a decade.