Why I Stopped Caring About Owning Music
When I stepped away from physical media entirely, the relief surprised me. I didn’t feel like I was giving something up. I felt like I was getting time back.
I’ve spent most of my life thinking carefully about how music gets into my ears. Formats, fidelity, storage, ritual, gear. I’ve lived through just about every phase of music consumption you can imagine, often enthusiastically, sometimes obsessively.
At this point, though, I’ve come to a place that surprises some people who know me: I don’t care about ownership or playback ritual anymore. I'm a full-blown, unabashed streamer.
That wasn’t always true.
I’ve owned large vinyl and tape collections. I recorded vinyl to tape, then to hard drives. I split tracks, trimmed out pops-and-clicks, tagged ID3 metadata by hand, hunted down cover art, and curated pristine WAV and FLAC libraries. I was a member of the WinAmp army. I owned eight large Rubbermaid bins full of factory CDs. I spent time with MiniDisc. I even recorded music from an XM Radio unit, back when those Garmin-looking bricks you plugged into your car’s head unit felt like living in the future.
About ten years ago, I dove back into vinyl again - seriously. Vinyl was making a comeback, and maybe I got caught up in the romance or nostalgia of it. Good turntable, preamp, stylus care, cleaning kits, sleeves, dedicated space. Some crate-diving on Saturday aftternoons. I enjoyed it.
And then one day it hit me: I was spending more time maintaining the process than enjoying the music itself. That was the a-ha moment. Not dramatic, just undeniable.
At some point, the friction stopped feeling meaningful and started feeling expensive - not financially (well a little), but cognitively. Physically. Spatially. Emotionally. Vinyl is beautiful, but it is also restrictive. It lives in one room. It requires attention, setup, maintenance, and storage. It occupies square footage that only one person in a household might truly benefit from. It quietly demands time - lots of it - in ways that are easy to romanticize and hard to account for honestly.
I began the long process of unloading all of it almost immediately. I got a decent chunk of change back (nowhere near what I’d invested, which is its own lesson), but far more valuable than the money was the clarity that came with letting it go.
I’ve never been tired of renting music the way I became tired of managing it.
When I stepped away from physical media entirely, the relief surprised me. I didn’t feel like I was giving something up. I felt like I was getting time back. Hours. Whole mornings. Mental bandwidth. Space in my house and space in my head.
That time didn’t disappear. It got reallocated. I read more about music. I write more. I go to more shows. I play guitar. I exercise, with music. I walk, with music. I take concert photos. All things that, for me, deepen my relationship with music far more than alphabetizing shelves or cleaning records ever did.
Some would assume I’ve abandoned sound quality. Maybe, technically, I have. Maybe streaming isn’t as “pure” as physical media. Honestly, I don’t know - and at this stage, I don’t care. I’ve been to a thousand concerts, many of them loud enough to leave permanent souvenirs behind. I listen through good headphones, decent speakers, a car system that sounds great to me, and a house that’s almost always filled with music. It’s more than enough.
Yes, streaming is another subscription in a world already drowning in them. But if I actually do the math - hours listened versus dollars spent - it’s the one service I’d keep among all of them. I’d give up TV and movies. I listen to music for most of the day, every day. Sometimes while doing other things, sometimes just sitting still, eyes closed. On Fridays, I’m listening to new releases before I’m even fully out of my driveway.
Do artists make less money from streaming than they did from CD sales? Almost certainly. I don’t love that reality. But I’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars on music over my lifetime - probably more than I want to calculate. I’m still supporting artists, but in different ways: Going to shows, buying merch, and, in the case of the local music scene, just showing up for them in any way I can. I bought a new vinyl release at a show from one of my favorite local bands, Jon Smith’s Voyages, shortly after getting rid of my turntable. It’s now framed on a wall in my office. I’m not interested in making my listening habits into a moral battleground, especially when my individual choices won’t meaningfully alter the system.
If Apple Music disappeared tomorrow, I’d adapt. I do still have a hard drive somewhere with 6 terabytes of full-res CD rips of my collection, up and to the point I went all streaming. There’d be some gaps. No King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Steven Wilson, or even Harry Styles. I’d be manually managing all of it again, but I wouldn’t have a choice. And if all streaming platforms vanished at once, we’ll probably have bigger problems than how I’m listening to Beck on my morning drive.
This isn’t a manifesto. It’s not advice. It’s just where I landed after decades of trying almost everything else. I understand why people love physical media. I did too. I just learned that for me, the joy eventually fell on the wrong side of the cost-benefit equation.
What I want now is simple: immediate access, minimal friction, and more time to actually live with music - not curate it.
That choice might seem ‘un-purist’ coming from me. I’m OK with that. Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters is streaming through my headphones as I write this, and it feels plenty pure to me.