At the end of December 2023 I decided to switch back to CDs and stop using Spotify. The idea was triggered by the announced price increase and I thought, that for all the money that I spent on it per Year, I can actually buy a few CDs that I then own. During this thought-process I also remembered a very foolish decision from a few years ago:
In a basement cleanup session, I decided to throw away a whole box of CDs. I didn’t own a CD player at the time and haven’t touched the box in years. I thought Spotify will be my music source forever. If I could turn back time and change that decision, I would.
In the years before music streaming services, I collected all my MP3 files in folders sorted by artist and album. It was the logical thing to do, because CDs contained one artist and album (apart from Bravo Hits and Dream Dance ᕕ(⌐■_■)ᕗ ♪♬). Then Spotify came and I had access to virtually everything – that changed my listening behaviour. I moved from a sorted folder full of artists and their albums to playlists. Since I didn’t have my folder collection anymore, I sometimes didn’t know what music to listen to. In the end I almost only listened to one particular playlist. Thinking about this today, makes me feel limited somehow. I stopped listening to whole albums, and just played the few songs that I really liked. If you only ever play the really good ones, they can get boring over time.
