I wish streaming was profitable enough (for artists, songwriters, etc.) but it really has opened up a lot of doors for artists that wouldn't have made it in the digital era. I also love that you can see re-peaks for artists occasionally and also fan favorite songs/older songs being able to get their moments to chart. Watching Running Up That Hill organically dominate last summer was such a moment 

The accessibility and freedom of the streaming era as a consumer is pretty unbeatable. Even as a stan, it's interesting to see what people consume on a day-to-day basis in such detail with the numbers, trends, recurrent song streams, etc. in a way I feel we never got to see in the digital era. The only con is the drop in supplemental content most big pop artists put out nowadays (i.e. performances, visuals, etc.)

5 hours ago, Brando said:

Can you have a Garth Brooks song? 

Yes

Streaming for convenience. Never had love for digital because the audio quality has always been crap (before FLAC and ALAC became a thing). I miss physicals. The feeling of unwrapping the album, flipping through the pages, reading the credits and finding out who the people behind the album are, the wonderful photoshoots, the often incorrect and "early" scrapped lyrics included, and the message/dedication from the artist—all of that is lost these days.

Streaming

Digital. Things were funner. I remember ppl tracking iTunes right when a song dropped. 
 

I feel like music had more value back then, accessibility can lead to devaluing of the music itself. 

Streaming is far more inclusive. Digital favored pop and country artists that were mostly white. Furthermore, by the 2010’s, it nearly wiped out the r&b artists on a mainstream scale 

I like streaming for listening to my digital era faves whos music i never bought

i hate how much trash gets through now, and how many people think theyre bigger than they are due to streaming but it is what it is~ 

Streaming. But let's be honest streaming has made pop culture so irrelevant and boring. 

 

No big stars, no performances, boring music videos, nothing. Even the itunes pop bars were fun to follow.

The streaming era is an unmitigated disaster. Even the big streamers like Netflix are realizing this streaming consumer model is unsustainable long term. 

Digital. Streaming era is easy to manipulate with playlists and auto play. Digital sales meant people actually were willing to spend money on you as a person. Even if it’s just a dollar for a single. 

I only bought like 3 albums in the whole digital era, everything else I downloaded.

 

Streaming is much better as it provides more access to music and more accurately what people are listening to. 

To this day I have not made the switch to streaming, probably never will.

 

I still buy digital copies on iTunes of albums or songs that I like, and still collect physicals from my favorite artists.

 

I will play a song on YouTube every now and then if I'm not 100% sold on it and don't want to spend money on it, but that's pretty much it.