I recall a commercial from the 90s that sort of poked fun at this exact idea, as being laughably farfetched and "sci-fi".
You're damn right I'm happy.
ive now been in a place where that membership isnt that daunting. but im good, im not gonna have my music library held prisoner from me unless i cough up a monthly fee. its quite literally unusable if you arent paying. it also seems like they intentionally make their browser based version kinda trash... to make using it to block ads a less viable option(its been a while, not sure how true this currently is).
the jellyfin option is actually what ive settled on as well, ive been a bit lazy about setting up more functionality than just for my LAN, but i will get around to it. for now i just kinda plop junk on my phone and play it through vlc, which is certainly a lazy solution but its still feels freeing.
I have a decently sized library with my favorite albums and that's been sufficient for some time now. Every once in a while, I track new releases and explore new genres, then add the few that picked my interest to my library.
Intentionally is great for enjoying art (and YouTube is more than enough for mood music)
I didn't think Spotify had fanboy/fangirl followings, but based on your and others' comments, I stand corrected. What do I know!
If you own, you don't pay subscription and can use that money to buy. And in tenuous circumstances you have control.
If you subscribe, you don't pay money to buy massive library. But in tenuous circumstances you don't have control.
Everybody rates the risk of tenuous circumstances differently and so that affects the decision outcome.
There's absolutely no way in hell I'm going back to hoarding stupid ass CDs or MP3/FLAC files when I can legally have immediate access to tens of millions of titles. I have absolutely zero interest in the "owning" part but I understand some people would prefer it.
so if you decide you cant pay their monthly fee, you still have full access to your library of songs that you chose to own over the years, and are not subjected to the feeling of being a prisoner to their subscription model if you decide you cant afford it for x amount of time.
this feeling of being a prisoner is the absolute main driver of why i prefer non spotify solutions. i love the actual product otherwise. if i had not experienced the non subscribed version of what my account feels like, i think i would still happily be paying for spotify today.
