[Innervisio]

Although true in comparison, it is still relative.

I was born in 1991 in an underdeveloped country. Buying CDs was a luxury and i lived out of torrents and pirated CD copies. I still bought original CDs from time to time.

But the biggest appreciation for me, and maybe for the original commenter, is the amount of music itself.

I love music, is my main hobby and passion. And having all of this available at all times is still mind blowing for me.

Ironically, i still buy my favourite music in CDs cuz i love them, but one would not replace the other.

Spotify (or streaming services overall) is indeed amazing.

[usrusr]

How do you deal with availability overload?

First half of my story feels surprisingly similar, despite being born much earlier and in a very developed country. Piracy only through tapes, later writable CDs and eventually also mp3 on writable CDs. When the Napster wave hit, I had my first "real" money beyond kids affordance and started buying a little more. Napster and its successors just felt too easy, that music did not feel sufficiently "mine", like a handmade copy on physical media did, despite being just as unlicensed. Very often, the records I did buy were quite a disappointment at first, before they started growing on me, and some of what I consider the best today would have never made it past that threshold if they happened in the abundance of Spotify or the heyday of unbounded internet piracy.

It's actually quite ironic: all my friends who indulged in Napster et al now have spotify accounts, whereas I have just stopped extending my repository of CD rips.

[Innervisio]

Very much similar! I started taping cassettes when i was like 8-10 years old. I erased some music from my mother’s cassette and she was furious hahah.

What do you mean with availability overload? I would say i am an active listener, my mind is rather a bit creative and i would dare to say that 80-90% percent of the time, i know what to listen. Even if it means to discover something new.

I used to like the Spotify recommendations but i disabled them since 2 years at they became like ads network “whoever pays more, gets more recommended”. I discover music now through personal recommendations, magazines (online), forums, references from artists i usually read about, or music produced by a producer i respect. How do you deal with?

But for example, right now i just wanted to listen some salsa/merengue (you can begin to guess where i am from) i always liked and made my own playlist with own songs.

Cheers!