Wow, plenty of streaming fanboys here.
I beg to disagree. To me streaming is another conduit for music, with its own set of pluses and minuses - nothing more and nothing less.
To clarify - I stream half of the time or more, and I have been listening to virtualized digital music since the good folks at Franhofer unleashed mp3 on the world in the early 90s. I am no luddite stuck in a long-gone past.
I do like the convenience and access of streaming, but I don’t like its all-you-can-eat relentlessness. In my view, the gluttony it shoves down your throat not only makes you feel like you’re a duck being groomed for foie gras, but it also strips the music of all the small things that give it its value and, appropriately enough I guess, it deprives its creators of what used to be a major source of revenue.
For me, there will always be a time and a place to switch off the streaming and enjoy LPs and CDs and tape.