Old CDs and records

OP, I think your newfound pleasure in vinyl will quickly disappear and you’ll be contemplating getting rid of your physical media again, along with the newly purchased table.

Streaming is just so darn convenient!

 simply being heard must give at least some satisfaction

Yes. I pay my mortgage with satisfaction.

@elmo2

So 16,000 disks. You are a collector. If you play one a day… it would take 43 years to listen to them all. How old are you? When I was working my average was 6 per week. Now that I am retired it is maybe 10 per week.

I did this calculation when about when I was 65 and realized I would be lucky to listen all my albums in during the rest of my life. I think at some point it really is a lot more about collecting than listening. But it is way better than collecting door knobs or stamps, you can do something with them. Nothing wrong with collecting.

I did say vast majority of artists always get screwed. I can't help we live in society/culture that doesn't value artists more highly. If we did, artists as a whole would have the power to alter supply/demand structure to favor themselves. As things stand only a select few have this power, this unchanged since before streaming. 

Streaming isn't the issue, power structures are, until that changes, things will remain as they always have.

@sns

Time to cue up that old quote attributed to Hunter S Thompson -

"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench - a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs.

There’s also a negative side..."

Let's face it, half of the music business seems to be entirely devoted to endless lawsuits.