I Sold my CD Player!!! Streaming sounds so incredible!!!

@wolf_garcia +1 I can agree that many artists receive too little compensation. But lets imagine a world without streaming where record companies control the marketing and promotion of artists they chose to work with. So, you're a beginning artist, who's going to market, promote, press hard copy for you! Nope, you better have big bucks behind you if you're independent of the record companies.

Don't delude yourself there was some golden age for artists in this country. Just last night I was listening to Randy Burns, acid folk artist from NYC from back in the 60's, in the vein of Pearls Before Swine, both on the legendary indie label ESP. These guys never made a buck, were hardly heard, sad, sad, sad. And I can say this about tons of both old and contemporary artists I've only found because of streaming. Did all those bebop jazz and blues musicians benefit from the old ways, nope. And how about all the musicians who couldn't even get signed to any label, they die and/or leave music without anyone other than a few close friends getting to hear their music.

I mostly despise  hard copy business model these days, how about the thousandth release of some Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan or any of a hundred old artists, albums selling for high dollars. Just how much money do you think average consumers have to spend on music, their entire monthly budget could be used up on a single album.  The hard copy way of doing business is obsolete, only a few artists benefit at all.

Streaming  and live performance/marketing will be the only business model going forward for vast majority of artists. It will be up to artists and consumers which way it goes in regard to remuneration.

Name me one artist, group, or orchestra that is satisfied with the present system and wouldn’t want to go back to the older one. Yes, that one had its problems but they pale in comparison. Musicians just adapted and now it’s the new normal.

Back when Napster first came out, all the online comments were: screw the artists, I don’t care, why buy it when I can get it for free, f*ck them all, etc. It became a thieves nation on a musical scale (pardon the pun).

A whole industry was built on that frame of mind which brings us to the present, with companies finding new ways to dig even deeper into our pockets. They even created an entire new value system to back it up to make one memory hole the past.

When I buy from someplace like Bandcamp, they offer downloads, vinyl and CDs at their respective prices. They even give you the option of paying more if you like and the shipping is on me. It’s one of the few refuges where artists can make a buck. I don’t mind that at all. Sometimes the artist will sell on Amazon and if so, I’ll buy it from there.

When Alexander saw the breadth of his music domain, he wept and then went streaming.

All the best,
Nonoise

Still listen to cds, reel to reel, vinyl and streaming…love each format…nothing about that will change…

I haven't played CDs in a long time, but I still buy CDs very often. 

I bought a Aurender N150 a couple years ago and it is excellent, but the reason I went with Aurender over Roon was the built in hard drive.

I have Qobuz and use it sometimes, but I mostly listen to my music library which is CDs ripped in WAV format onto the built in solid state hard drive. Streaming sounds pretty good and the Hi Res stuff is above the regular CD quality streams... BUT my ripped music library on the internal hard drive absolutely blows away anything on Qobuz... Often when I hear a new album or artist I discover on Qobuz I will buy the CD and add it to my collection..

Well, business models have never favored vast majority of artists, musicians. Until the day comes they can leverage their art it will never happen.

I'm sure most popular artists would prefer a system where they and their record company could monopolize their hard copy. Again, I return to the more obscure artists who'd never have the resources to press, market and distribute their music to the vast public.

I'd also posit streaming is a more democratic system in regard to bringing far more music to the public than would exist otherwise. Keeping in mind some artists underpaid, greater affordability of music means poorer folks have access to music they may not have with previous business models.

I well remember the bad old days, when I was young and poor, saving up for the few albums I could afford, the others I desired had to be satisfied listening to radio. Vast majority of stations were tightly programmed, very limited playlists, even the free form FM stations genre specific. Jazz and classical limited to far end of dial, usually with weak signals. Think about how much better the youth have it today, I have budding audiophile nephews who because of exposure via streaming know some of those obscure artists I also enjoy. We also support these artists via attending concerts from time to time. We wouldn't even have heard of these artists without streaming.

in the final analysis its silly to argue about the utility of streaming as it pertains to the distribution and enjoyment of music. At issue is a cost/benefit analysis for artists via past and present business models.There is valid argument vast majority of artists have never been properly paid for their endeavors. I'd just like to know since when has capitalism been fair to vast swaths of the masses. Streaming is here to stay, its up to artists and consumers upset with present streaming models to create a new, fairer business model. Lacking that, artists and consumers have the free choice to contribute and/or consume their music via streaming. Some will boycott streaming, providing absolutely no help to the artists, use your energies coming up with new business model that benefits artists more greatly.