[yamaneko]

I don't pirate music anymore for the same reason. However, I also don't listen to music as I used to. I usually use Spotify to listen to what I already know, not so much to find new stuff. Before, I used to dive in depth into an artist/band, starting from their greatest hits. Once I got the band vocabulary, I'd download the albums chronologically and listened to every track, sometimes more than once until I got familiar with it. Now I don't do it with as much scrutiny, which is interesting since Spotify has all albums very well organized and even the discovery playlist. It would be much easier and better.

Is IKEA effect at play? Without Spotify, I would only start another artist when I finished the current one. So, with Spotify it becomes an information management problem due to the large amount of albums available at a click. Or it could just be that my life has changed and I don't have a time slot dedicated to music anymore.

[alex_duf]

I'm facing a very similar problem. Same story as you, I would buy MP3 or pirate if they weren't easily made available. But the amount of research I would put in the music I was listening to was enormous, making me proud of my collection.

I was able to recognise any song in my collection in less than 5 seconds, give you the artist, how I discovered it and potentially an anecdote about them.

Now I have playlists full of stuff I know nothing about. It definitively solved the music distribution issue, but I have trouble to be emotionally attached to the music I discover on Spotify.

I think your theory about the IKEA effect is probably spot(ify) on

[spaceandshit]

Have you seen the 'Browse' page? You'll find a lot of new music.

[cja]

IKEA effect?

[Anthony-G]

It's an interesting phenomenon that you'll no doubt recognise. I first came across while doing an online behavioural economics course. Wikipedia has a good article on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA_effect

[esolyt]

"The IKEA effect is a cognitive bias in which consumers place a disproportionately high value on products they partially created."