High Infidelity

What I find really annoying is how stuff comes and goes from streaming catalogues.  Also annoying is how some albums have one or more tracks missing; some people who don't know the album might not even notice this, but, it is often the best track that is missing.

I will never stream... 😁

Anyone on this site complaining about the cost of purchasing music should stop right now. When you're willing to spend $10k+ to stream free content  you can't really comment on the cost of music when you're not willing to help support the artists that make the music you enjoy. 

I'm not sure how a download service would refund a digital download because it's not at the preferred bitrate. I used to have an account with E-music back before streaming services existed. Bought quite a bit over the many years knowing full-well I was getting mp3s up to 320kbps but not CD quality.

As for continuing to purchase digital downloads, I still do but of select artists whose music is out of print or the CD/vinyl format is too expensive. There is a Japanese ambient artist I like whose music is now mostly available via high-res download. On occasion a vinyl copy might pop up for lots of $. If I buy CD or vinyl from the Bleep website I get a complimentary FLAC copy that I download onto my home server, both as a backup but also as a listening convenience factory when I queue up multiple albums to listen to in a session. 

I also find that not every streaming service has what I want or is going to keep complete cataloga or specific versions of an album available on their service. I see songs and albums disappear on Spotify all the time.

At the end of the day, chalk your purchase up to the price of listening to your favorite artists. Think of your lower res copy like a vinyl copy that someone on discogs over-rated as M/NM instead of the VG it really is. 

As the OP pointed out, the “renting music” indefinitely just sticks in my craw. They simply took a page from software companies where you used to buy/own a program but now you have to license it annually. It sucks! I want to OWN my music and have it at my fingertips, not exist in the ether where I have to pay a monthly fee to access it. Besides, I could conceive of a future where certain old songs become “problematic” for some reason and simply disappear - or, like Disney, someone decides to change the lyrics of a song. I want to own physical media. Buy it once and own it forever. Besides, it sounds better! The few discs I own in Dolby ATMOS (Pink Floyd, Rush & Beatles) smoke the compressed versions I hear when I stream Amazon music. For those that love the streaming model and don’t care about physical media’s demise, picture the next step being you have to pay a monthly license fee for your actual audio gear! Think like when you had to rent the cable box. You get a discounted piece of electronics (DAC, steamer, etc) but have to pay a monthly fee to keep it active. Does that sound good to you too? It will cost you every month but don’t worry, they will provide firmware updates constantly so you feel like your actually getting something in return for your paid subscription that will never end…

I find streaming to be very convenient. I still have a turntable (SYSTEMDEK IIX) and CD player (Naim CDi) for the rare occasion when I listen to physical media (maybe five percent of the time).

The comment regarding people being too lazy to get up and change their CD put me in mind of the Proceed CD library 100 CD player of the 1990’s.

https://www.stereophile.com/cdplayers/849/index.html