I’ll admit it sounded a little showy to me too, but a lot of the nicher things with their own benefits sound pretentious when just being said in plain wording. I like fountain pens because they’re pleasant to write with but are more expensive and less convenient. Always sounds pretentious just saying I like them and why if I don’t throw in the caveats like I did here.

There’s the chance he is trying to, of course. I try to assume the best these days for my own sake though

I don’t think his post is meant to be hostile. It’s not pointless, but it would add more of a discussion to elaborate on the topic.

On the topic of choosing to own (download (without DRM)) your music, one of the benefits is that it allows you to have all your music available in whichever music player (app/program/streaming service) you like. You can access the music while offline, without being required to pay some subscription fee. If downloading, it’s generally also very easy to switch between different players if you so desire to in the future. You can control the metadata (swap album art, edit track info, etc.) You can sometimes even use owned media in tandem with streaming services to put all your media in one place within a streaming service’s app/program. Usually, doing this requires less purchases/downloads to get all your media in one place, but still requires a sub.

On the topic of using Apple Music as a player… I’m not sure if it’s still this way, but you needed to use iTunes (on a PC!) to import local MP3 files to Apple Music, which, iTunes, love it or hate it, requires you to not only own a PC, but it has its limitations such as FLAC files being unsupported… That being said, Apple Music does provide a great convenience for many people and it’s often cheaper than legally purchasing all of your songs. You can even add your downloaded songs from a PC (but not locally from an android device for some reason??)

I prefer to own my music. For anyone who likes the idea but doesn’t know where to start, I can give some recommendations for convenience.

For music acquisition, use a legal website like Bandcamp to purchase your music, most of the money goes to Artists, compared to some other platforms. Alternatively you could pirate… (illegal! I don’t care if you pirate, but I’m not gonna write a tutorial.)

If you want to sync owned/downloaded files, use: SyncThing - free software that lets you automatically mirror file directories between your devices, syncing your libraries with no fees required. Available on Android/Win/Linux/Mac

For players, I recommend:

Android:

PowerAmp - trial & one time purchase, has theming support, massive customization options

Oto Music - lite version or one time purchase, supports downloading & embedding lyrics

PC:

MusicBee - free, has theming support, allows loading network files (local or remote)

Plenty of players available for different functional needs and/or aesthetics, but these are what I currently use.