Bandcamp, qobuz, bleep, Beatport, theres a number of options out there to pick up cheap digital music. And then you also have the aforementioned eBay and discogs etc. Which, true, is second hand. But even splitting the amount the artist makes from that physical release between you and the person who previously bought it, they are still making way more from you than they would from just your streams.

And sure, 216 albums doesn’t seem like much. But they’d be all yours. Nobody could take them from you (well, besides if you got physically robbed I guess). There’s a bunch of stuff that has disappeared off of there. Big Black, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Joanna Newsom, off the top of my head. You also have artists that have never been on there, Tatsuro Yamashita comes to mind. It also used to be a real problem with artists like Tool, The Beatles, AC/DC just not being there at all too. Then there’s other times where I’ve been playing albums, and tracks are just straight up missing (I presume due to licensing issues). I remember being royally annoyed with A Cross The Universe missing a bunch of tracks ages ago, and it used to happen frequently enough with other releases that it made an impression. Plus all the classic hip-hop that is missing cos of sample clearance issues. And heaven forbid if you wanna listen to classical music, or traditional music from around the world, it’s as if Spotify has never heard of the genre (both genres are represented, but it’s such a poor showing that they would’ve done better if there was just none at all). And I understand that this isn’t all on Spotify, but I’ve never had any of those issues with my personal collection.

Is it perfect? No. Does it reward the artist fairly? Undoubtedly. Would I take it over Spotify? Every day of the year for the rest of my life.