Digital vs. Physical: Music

This is Part 3 of my “Digital vs. Physical” series. For those just joining, that have not read the prologue post, this series is about digital and physical media, such as games and music, and TV shows. 

To be honest, I personally feel like there is very little to debate about for this topic. Seriously. In many ways I would consider music and audio based media to be trailblazers for digital content. When Napster was released in 1999, it took off relatively quickly, for the time. It allowed users to download MP3 files of their favorite music via P2P network. By January of 2001, it had over 10 million users.

Napster was closed down by a court order in the summer. However, digital music continued in the form of Apples iTunes service. While it was best used with Apple devices, such as iPods, iPads, and iPhones, it still garnered attention (and use) from consumers on every platform. In February of 2013, Apple celebrated 25 billion songs sold. In fact, at the time Apple claimed that over 15,000 songs were being downloaded per minute.

I remember 15 years ago, when CD's were the preferred means of getting your music fix. It was what felt like a million times better than cassettes. Even in high school, August 2005 - June 2009, CD's were the "it" medium for music. Sure, many people had iPhones and iPods, as well as Sony Erickson Walkman, and even a few Zunes, but most of the people I knew still used CD's. In college I noticed the quick transition from CD's to downloaded music. But is purchasing a digital copy really the best solution? 

Over the past few years there has been a tremendous push to transition from downloading music and paying per song or album, to streaming. Sure, in some cases we still download the music for offline enjoyment, but we don't expect to pay per song all that much anymore. Here are the 13 most well known streaming services (some, like Xbox Music will allow you to download the music for offline listening). 

	Catalog	Quality	Platforms	Price
Beats Music	20m	320 Kbps	Android, iOS, Web, Windows	$10/mo.
Google Play	20m	320 Kbps	Android, iOS, Web	Free or $10/mo. extras
Grooveshark	Unknown	Unknown	Android, Web	Free w/ads, $6/mo., $9/mo. mobile
iHeartRadio	15m	Unknown	Android, BlackBerry, iOS, Web, Windows, Xbox	Free
iTunes Radio	26m	256 Kbps	Apple TV, iOS, OS X, Windows	Free w/ads or $25/yr
Last.fm	Variable	128 Kbps	Android, iOS, Linux, OS X, Windows, Sonos, Web	Free or $3/mo. extras
Sony Music	25m	320 Kbps	Android, iOS, PlayStation, Web, TVs	$5/mo. or $10/mo. mobile
Pandora	1m	192 Kbps	Android, BlackBerry, iOS, Roku, Sonos, Web, Xbox	Free w/ads or $5/mo.
Rhapsody	32m	192 Kbps	Android, iOS, Web, Windows, Xbox	$10/mo.
Rdio	20m	192 Kbps	Android, BlackBerry, iOS, OS X, Web, Windows	$5/mo., $10/mo. mobile, $18/mo. family
Slacker	13m	128 Kbps	Android, iOS, Web, Windows, Xbox	Free w/ads, $4/mo., $10/mo. extras
Spotify	20m	320 Kbps	Android, BlackBerry, iOS, OS X, Windows	$10/mo.
Xbox Music	30m	192 Kbps	Android, iOS, Web, Windows, Xbox	$10/mo., $60/yr for Xbox Live to listen on Xbox

*Table is compliments of Time.com's article "13 Streaming Music Services Compared by Price, Quality, Catalog Size and More".

Chances are, no matter which service you pick, you'll find plenty of your top music picks available. Services like Google Play, Spotify and Xbox Music often times add music right as it becomes available (personally, I have never been unable to find a song I am looking for). Streaming services offer such a wide variety. Even if you only listen to 15 new songs a month, you're going to at least break-even in terms of getting a digital copy or streaming, over purchasing an actual CD. 

To add further fuel to the "digital" fire, podcasts really weren't something you could get with cassettes and CD's. iTunes and Xbox Music allow you to download (and at least with Xbox Music, stream) podcasts from multiple devices, without having to pay per podcast episode. This has been one of my personal biggest draws to digital audio media (if you haven't checked out "We're Alive", you really should!). 

Okay, sure, there are still a few times you may want to pickup a physical copy of music, such as the Wu-Tang's Secret Album. Or maybe if you have a multi-CD changer, or just plain prefer CD's. But personally, I have found that fewer and fewer people even consider using CD's. It used to be that CD's were a hit on long drives, such as road-trips. But now, it's cellphones and MP3 players. Even if your car doesn't have built in support for playing media from phones and MP3 players, there are cheap workarounds (such as cassettes with an auxiliary cord for your mobile device). This is probably the only point in this series where I will say this: Physical versions of audio based media is all but dead, in the eyes of the average and modern consumers.