Quite enjoy some of the tongue in cheek stuff in this thread, as well as more serious comments 
.
But still, it makes me ponder where I stand, as a very happy (Qobuz) streamer, and what in fact I know about my own behaviour and how great, or terrible, it is for artists and others involved in creating music.
I tried to quantify and qualify my behaviour, and what it means, and probably got it all wrong. Here goes …
Streaming
Over a year I play approximately … (via Roon)
- 1200 hours - 18000 songs?
Plus a bit more via radio and direct from Qobuz and other sources - 21000 songs total?
My Roon playtime of course includes local, already purchased, content…But let’s e.g. assume 2/3 is from outside the local collection - Qobuz streams in my case. This is admittedly a wild guess, and (deliberately) towards the high end of what occurs to me as realistic.
So, I would get exposure to maybe 14000 streamed songs, via low-cost (but not free) ‘window shopping’.
Purchases
(full albums) … bought over a year for my own collection and some as gifts. Approximately :
- 125 CDs ;
- 30 Vinyl records ;
- 100 Digital downloads (without physical media) from Bandcamp ;
- 35 Digital downloads (without physical media) from other sources, (10 or so via Amazon, remainder direct from artist or label)
In total 290 records. Average 10 songs. By ca 250 (album) artists.
Total purchase cost ex shipping and tax around 3000 GBP for close to 3000 songs. (Not so clear to me how much of this goes to artists, to independent labels, to big fish in the chain …)
In other words…
Streaming 14000 songs (the ‘window shopping’) converts into spending GBP 3000 of my money (on average ca 1 pound per song bought) on music purchases, effectively on a lifetime right to listen to play ca 3000 songs whenever I like. I don’t feel I am over- or underpaying.
As I buy albums, not songs, these are not a simple subset of what I streamed. And the bulk of my money benefits only those involved with the sales chain of around 250 album artists - I may have streamed from many more, perhaps 10K artists? So my purchases are more ‘concentrated’ in the sense of covering a relatively limited number of artists. But that is not really different from window shopping old style, I guess.
But still, despite not knowing where the money exactly goes, my ability to stream unlimited (at a very low cost) appears to make me spend more, not less, on music than at any time before I had this opportunity. And a good proportion of it is spent through channels that I hope benefit and reward artists fairly.
Please, tell me I am deserving to sleep the sleep of the innocent 
…
Sweet dreams all!
