“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men.”
As a child of the early 1980s, I’ve had a particular journey with respect to music:
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I listened to voice and sound effects recorded on vinyl records reading the early-reader “Golden Books” to me.
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I was given vinyl records and even 8-track tapes with music on them.
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I purchased music on cassette tape, but then -
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I repurchased the same music on CD because CD was so much better, but then -
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I repurchased the same music as digital download because CDs get scratched and skip when moved too much, but then -
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I was told to pay for music subscriptions to listen to the music I had bought many times before, only to have the music I like disappear from the service randomly - but then -
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Multiple times the streaming service (Apple Music, but others too) completely destroyed my legit, curated digital music library because they don’t understand that music that isn’t on their service could possibly exist.
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And at every one of those iterations (and some in between) I’ve had to buy new bespoke devices for listening to my already purchased many times over music. btw, have you tried using Apple Music on an older Apple Device? I bet you can guess how that goes.
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Meanwhile during all of this I’ve been told over and over again that I owe money to the people who produce and distribute this music - not just that piracy is evil, but even the concept of making and keeping your own recordings or digital rips is so fundamentally horrible that Sony is entitled to root my computer, tape players need to not be able to record, and that dangerous analog hole (the headphone jack) needs to be removed from all devices.
- Also meanwhile the people making popular music and distributing it are routinely found to be the most horrible people on earth.
This journey the music industry has taken over the past ~45 years has been defined by the selfish greed and tyranny of evil men… the worst of which, of course, has been in the past 10-20 years or so.
I’m done. I’m out.
It’s not amazing or glorious to stand up against this crap; there’s a lot of other (worse) evil happening in this world. But I’m done.
I’m soo done.
I don’t care if it’s more difficult, less convenient, or takes a lot of work to maintain; I’m never paying for a music subscription ever again.
If they want me to buy music ever again, it will be on something I can physically hold, and you bet I will be changing it into whatever digital format I like at that moment and playing it on whatever player I like.
My technical system… is not important. At some point I will certainly discuss it, but it really doesn’t matter. What matters is that it’s past time for me to break free of the tyranny of renting music. To free myself from paying for a product I’ve already paid for many times over, only to have what was promised to me constantly get pulled away or changed at the whim of <not me>.
And yea… basically all of the above applies to movies, TV shows, and even video games, too. They are slightly less cursed because they held on to physical formats a little longer… but yea.
There’s beauty in owning an Atari cartridge.