The digital death of collecting | Hacker News Reader

The digital death of collecting

kylechayka.substack.com

65 points__Joker63 comments

This article conflates digital/physical with ownership/rental. You can still collect music digitally! Buy CDs, rip them, tag them, keep them all in one big folder and use a music player that lets you browse them. Download DRM-free mp3s. This was the standard model from 2000 to 2010 - remember Napster? how quickly we forget!

Take back control!

I think the article misses why people collect.

A sense of genuine scarcity, specialness or rarity. Things that others do not, or cannot have. Items that have a sense of historicity about them. Hidden gems, secrets or banned things that only the collector posesses. Things with their own stories.

Physical collections have this interesting property that they tend to automatically become more unique and interesting over time as they accumulate history and comparable items are destroyed or lost.

Arrangement, curation and the search for completeness within a chosen field can count for a lot. But I posit that hoarding commercially released, widely available digital files cannot really satisfy a true urge to collect. Producing and trading bootlegs is a lot closer.

I suppose NFTs could fill some of the gap here but they seem like simulacra to me.

As someone with a box of DVD-Rs filled with terabytes of carefully tagged MP3s that is collecting dust and probably slowly dying of disc rot, I’m much happier just paying my Spotify subscription.

I rediscovered the joy of my carefully tagged music collection with Plex. Turns out I really do prefer the media I gathered (whether for sentimental or quality reasons)

For not much more than the annual price of your Spotify subscription, you can fit the entire contents of that box in a shard of plastic the size of your thumbnail.

I think that the lesson is more for people who haven't yet obtained TBs of music. The only legal way of doing this is going to cost you a lot of money.

Some songs aren't even available on CD anymore.

I've been thinking about writing a Spotify ripper.

And some songs aren't available from streaming services.

OCRemix fan works come to mind, as does anything foreign. I paid 50 (50!) USD for an imported CD of Duke of Pianeet's Singularity.

> I've been thinking about writing a Spotify ripper.

https://github.com/pisto/oggify

I'm using audible, and I use a software to backup all books I paid for in a non DRM format. A spotify reaper would make tons of sense.

https://hn.algolia.com/?query=interviewfor.red&type=comment

eDonkey seemed to have the biggest collection of rare-ish music when I last used it years ago.

I am perfectly content with how things are now.

I still collect things I care about, I have tons of FLACs (some ripped from my CDs, some bought online) from artists that are meaningful to me and whose music is significant in my view.

I'm still grateful for Youtube and Deezer (I hate Spotify's UX so I'm never there) for providing me access to music I wouldn't necessarily collect, but I'm now also not at will of some radio DJ when I want that kind of ephemeral music in my life.

Unfortunately, in many cases, the digital release of an album sounds better than the CD, due to a longstanding trend in the CD industry of brickwalling and compressing the dynamic range to the point it becomes auditory sludge.

CDs are digital too. It's probably better to say "the online release" or "the downloadable release".

You understood what I meant though. If the point was understood, then the language used has served its purpose.

You should still strive to use accurate terminology, however. Yes, your point got across, I don't deny that.

I collect vinyl. I won't bore everyone with all the romantic details, but I have found one very interesting effect to my listening: having to physically put the album on the turntable, and flip it over, has made me far more attentive to the music.

When I was a teenager listening to CDs on the bus I'd really sink myself into an album, and listen to it dozens or even hundreds of times. Now I'm back in that mode, it's not just passive consumption anymore.

>I collect vinyl. [...], but I have found one very interesting effect to my listening: having to physically put the album on the turntable, and flip it over, has made me far more attentive to the music.

I'm not debating you but just mentioning how I ultimately came to the opposite conclusion: the limitations of physical media like vinyl and cassettes put an artificial ceiling on my music enjoyment. I wrote a previous comment about digital libraries revealing my true preferences for music: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13572752

I like to sit for hours with expensive headphones to study & analyze lots of music (for example compare and contrast tracks) and flipping vinyl records prevents that in-depth exploration.

Also, more about the aspect of collecting, rather than listening to music: discogs.com

If you're a collector, digital platforms like discogs give you access to a way bigger market. (And I imagine there's something like that for pretty much everything one could collect.)

I think I spent more time browsing discogs than any physical record store, even before those were forced to close their doors due to the pandemic.

Anyone who listens to music or reads books more closely when they're physical, if that works better for you you're doing the right thing, and more power to you. Personally for me its made no odds whether its digital or physical, but whatever works for you.

That being said, I have noticed the snobbishness that comes with physical versions of things doesn't always reflect more enjoyment of the actual content. I've tried talking to certain people about specific books, and all they want to talk about is the format the words are written on. I try to move onto the actual content itself and they're disinterested, almost as if the content of the book is secondary compared to the paper it comes on.

It's even stranger with vinyl, as there is an objective loss of quality. As I said, if you enjoy it more despite (or even because) of this, more power to you. But its not higher quality than digital, its just more work to operate.

Whatever gets you closer to the content is what I'm trying to say, but remember, it's what works for you, its not a universal solution.

Edit: Didn't expect this to be controversial much, but judging by the downvotes maybe so. Most of the time when I've spoken to people about this previously it hasn't been so much because they've sworn they're not this kind of person, so maybe some of you are just more self aware about being a bit of a snob. Kudos to you, I suppose.

Or maybe people are thinking I'm talking about anyone who enjoys physical media, in which case remember the age old rule; if it doesn't sound like I'm talking about you, I'm not talking about you.

>But its not higher quality than digital, its just more work to operate.

There are desirable differences aside from "more work". Many people listen to vinyl rips because the original mastering had greater dynamic range. Here's a decent looking article on the subject:

https://www.yoursoundmatters.com/vinyl-vs-cd-in-the-loudness...

That seems to be more about the actual music than the method of delivery. It may be true a lot of the time, but I think it says more about someones music taste than the format.

Of course, there are reasons to listen to vinyl beyond "more work", that was bad wording on my part. The point I was trying to make there was the myth that vinyl was of a higher measurable quality than other formats.

Raw measurable quality isn't everything, thats certainly not my point, but there will be those that believe the myth and use it to inflate their ego. No doubt people do this with FLAC as well, and thats no better, but at least its true to some degree.

Just make sure you don't get a re-release from a made-for-streaming mix that will sound even worse on vinyl.

It's probably somewhat like classic cars - they're objectively worse in most ways (slower, less comfortable, less reliable, less safe) but people enjoy the experience.

> It's probably somewhat like classic cars - they're objectively worse in most ways (slower, less comfortable, less reliable, less safe

At least for me, there is an element of "I preserved this myself" that would make an older car a point of pride. Eg if I had owned a car for many decades and worked on it myself, it maybe objectively worse than a new one but it's something I had a part in.

I feel this way about parts of my house that I worked on , versus hiring someone.

I am not sure if this is the factor for most collectors (perhaps "I own this" is enough for them) but just throwing this out.

Oh absolutely, as I say I have no problem with people enjoying them more, I would if I could put up with the lesser reliability, but within the large circle of people that like classic cars, there is still that smaller circle that don't actually really ever drive them, but will talk endlessly about how good the driving experience is versus disgusting modern cars.

I guess people like to be a part of an exclusive group, even if they don't particularly enjoy what the group does. I'm probably guilty of it somewhere, though I still don't think its right

It's a classic Veblen status thing. Bookshelves and vinyl collections are a class marker.

You can't impress visitors if your book and music collection is on a NAS in your office, no matter how many tens of thousands of media items you own.

Assuming your visitors are the type to be impressed by that.

To me it looks either like trying too hard or just hoarding.

Empty space is the real Veblen these days!

We could perhaps even collect people and personalities. And, much like with physical objects, the rarest and most unusual ones tend to be the ones that we most enjoy bringing up in conversation.

I should have said that the main distinction in the article was less physical v. electronic than "organized by me" v. "arranged by what the provider thinks suits me." That his examples of owner-organized are books and records might derive from the much longer history of physical libraries, personal or not.

Apologies, I did go a bit off topic.

As for the actual topic at hand, I think again its whatever floats your boat. I personally like to organise everything myself, but I know many people who use software or services specifically because the providers works that out for them. I can see the logic in that, and kind of wish I could be a bit more like that, it'd certainly make things easier.

Off onto another tangent but somewhat related, it reminds me of the ipad update that came in last week. I was furious about it, it ruined my neatly arranged homescreen and I had to go in again and rethink everything. I asked my younger brother about it, who also owns an ipad, hoping for someone to share in my frustration, but he just thought it was funny. As it turns out, he brought an ipad specifically so he wouldn't have to worry about things like organising his home screen and trying to maintain order. I am who I am, but I do envy that attitude a bit.

I can definitely sympathize with the author.

My answer has been to get away from Spotify altogether. Instead I buy vinyl, tape, or FLAC. And this gives me an opportunity to plug my favorite website for music: https://bandcamp.com ! Bandcamp allows you to buy music from your favorite artists at reasonable prices, and have the opportunity to download an archival lossless copy to keep on a self-hosted music server (or just your laptop). Strong recommend from a long-time user.

This article comes off as "man yells at cloud"

>the changing interface makes me feel like I’m suddenly operating unfamiliar machinery, piloting an ungainly tractor in a construction site. I can’t perform the same actions I used to, and so I can’t use the app in quite the same way.

This sounds like a good thing honestly, It will keep your brain from solidifying and becoming entirely non adaptive as your preexisting knowledge was all that was needed. Constantly learning new things is literally good for you even if the new knowledge isn't more useful than the old was. A child sees the new spotify UI and works it out within minutes, if you can no longer do this, it's an actual issue and you should probably thank spotify for keeping your brain active for a little longer.

> A child sees the new spotify UI and works it out within minutes, if you can no longer do this, it's an actual issue and you should probably thank spotify for keeping your brain active for a little longer.

Your post so entirely misses the point of the entire article that I wonder whose cognitive decline we should be worried about.

The author isn't bleating meaninglessly about how these applications move interface elements around and confuse his ossified brain, it's about the way the interfaces change to align with the profit-motive of the corporation in ways that are often not aligned at all with the user - the nominal 'owner' of the artifacts (your pictures or your music or books).

My father got online in his 60s in ~2000 for business reasons. Email, video-conference, banking, auctions, etc.

Today he gets confused every time Outlook or another provider changes its interface. He is losing control and making himself vulnerable to scams.

> losing control and making himself vulnerable to scams

This! Thank you, this was the one thing I was never able to put into words.

Gmail's mobile changes irritated me enough to switch over to the barebones Samsung Email app on my phone. I'd suggest having your dad use an email client app to avoid disruptive UI changes on the email vendor's app.

Learning to operate new machines is good. But The article talks about how a collection is a way of relating to the world. How it is a 'personal monument'. It's not good when your personal monuments get disassembled without even consulting you beforehand.

This flies in the face of 40 years of UI design. Muscle memory is a good thing. Muscle memory is exactly the point where you don't have to think about it at a low level. Imagine if they completely and wildly rearranged automotive UIs at the slightest provocation. Suddenly, your brake is on the right because somebody thought it looked better over there. Admittedly, Spotify changing their interface has much less risk for harm than non-standard automotive layouts. However, the idea still holds.

Hell, if something caused the icons on my phone to be rearranged, I'd be pretty damn mad. According to the logical end of your viewpoint, phones randomly rearranging the icons would be a good thing because you have to relearn everything?

There are ways to truly foster neuroplasticity. This ain't it.

I'm very good at learning a new user interface. The problem is when you change things up, you take someone who has become proficient and drop them down a few pegs when you change up too much. Ever wonder why, even with the changes that are present, the core concept of an application like Photoshop is still there, virtually unchanged? One or more edit windows, a toolbox, option panels, and menus. Even though it's been expanded on, the window layout of the latest Photoshop CC is very much rooted in that of the earliest versions.

My Spotify account is the last 10 years of my musical growth and experience, and I can share a song or an entire playlist with anyone at any time. My physical book library is spread out across 3 states and I tend to get back about half the books I lend out. I'm not about to drop the books, but if I could trade them all for a PDF library tomorrow it would be hard to say no.

Of my spotify favourites of about 200 tracks I've had about 5-10 become "unavailable" over about 2 years :/

Its not enough to make me ditch the platform (there's always more out there) but it's annoying. At least they leave the greyed out tombstone there so I can get them some other way.

You can, though not for free. https://1dollarscan.com/

Looking at all the people I know and their houses, I'd say that collections are far more often a burden than a boon. I praise digital "all you can eat" style offerings for freeing us from unhappy hoarding.

There are collections, and also collections.

The author isn't really talking about physical objects that accumulate around the house seemingly all by themselves. The author's talking about collections that are deliberately, lovingly curated as a labor of love.

The difference is critical. It's not entirely unlike how I knit and sew purely for pleasure, while my grandmother did so because her family couldn't afford off-the-rack items. The physical details of the two activities might be similar, but what was actually happening there was radically different.

The difference between physical hobbies and items though is big.

My dad's best friend has a huge batman memorabilia collection. It's worth millions and has been lovingly collected over 30 years.

He hasn't gone on vacation in decades because he's scared someone will steal from it if he's gone too long.

Yep. Recently moved continent and wasn’t at all sure what to do with my CD collection. I mostly stopped adding to it over a decade ago, I have it all ripped but I barely ever bother playing those files because Spotify has basically everything and why bother?

The only reason I didn’t dispose of them is because I think of them as a sort of physical license to the rips.

I'd rather listen to my library on Foobar2000 than on an ad-ridden web app with an Electron wrapper.

And by ads, I don't mean free tier ads, I mean Spotify draping their entire app with ads for a new Drake album, for free and paid users alike.

https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/03/spotify-users-push-back-at...

Eh, I’m accustomed to ignoring suggestions on every platform, as my tastes are eclectic (which is not to say superior, I listen to some awful tripe sometimes), so that really didn’t register. Plus I often access Spotify via Sonos anyway so … yeah.

> Spotify has basically everything and why bother?

So you don't tether yourself to a single company that could change their terms/prices on a whim? Plus, unless you're streaming on their "very high" setting (320kbps), there's a noticeable difference in quality on half way decent speakers.

You either tether yourself to a companies whim or you tether yourself to piles of physical stuff you have to manage for the rest of your life. Personally I'll take digital every time the choice comes up.

False dichotomy. You could rip all your CDs and scan all your books, and there's a good chance it'll fit on a single hard disk drive. Don't forget that digital storage technology density is improving every year, while books and CDs aren't getting any smaller.

The one good thing about music streaming is that all the competitors pretty much have the same catalog.

They have almost every music on earth, except the few remaining artists who decided not to publish to streaming platforms.

So if you're unhappy with Spotify, you can switch to Youtube Music, Amazon Music or Apple Music and still find all your songs.

I wish we could say the same of video (Netflix/Prime/Disney+/AppleTV/...)

I stream as good quality as I’m able, but honestly I’m not an audiophile by any stretch. I have a bunch of Sonos gear because I like the convenience.

There are other companies who offer similar services, and they will fill a gap should Spotify fail.

In the long run, everything is ephemeral. A digital archive could potentially last longer than a book or a vinyl, as long as the archivist takes care to maintain the integrity of the data.. Except in a sense that isn’t true at all. In the distant future the archived material* is actually a copy of a copy ad nauseam, but perhaps a more perfect preservation of material than the Mona Lisa today.

*”material” being the relevant information.

Kind of like the 'ship of theseus' thought experiment.

But in this case it seems a lot more clear that it doesn't matter if it is the original or merely something that resembles the original. I don't care about the actual bytes on a hard drive, the grooves on a vinyl or whatever else the medium may be. This is all just a manifestation of something which is beyond the material realm. I care about the song, not the specific way the song is represented in the world of matter.

I agree that the nostalgic feeling of physical items and "old" software evokes a much stronger emotional response than modern algorithmic-based "platforms." It comes down to a trade-off between convenience and commitment. Building an extensive CD or record collection took time, money and physical space. Playing a recommended list on Spotify or Amazon requires only the monthly subscription -- very little personal investment. The instant gain up front comes with the potential loss of nostalgia/memories down the road -- the "good 'ol days".

I do empathize with the author. I hope the next generation is able to enjoy nostalgic tech experiences similar to those I feel when seeing a WinAmp video, hearing AOL's infamous "you got mail" greeting, or the old dial-up internet sound. But I'm sure future generations will always have something reminisce about. It will just be bigger things like ... "remember when we had to actually drive our cars!"

I wonder how many people commenting read the article in full, as it seems most points did not come across.

It's not singularly about owning music media versus Spotify, the author lists many other issues with collecting in the digital sense.

Such as apps updating and breaking or moving your carefully curated digital collection. Services that may shutdown entirely. Links that break. Timeline algorithms removing personal choice and discovery. In general, digital being very fleeting and impersonal.

I remember many years ago spending a good amount of time making playlists and starring my favourite songs on the KDE media player. Then KDE4 happened and everything was lost. Same thing happened at least a couple of times, and it's a real pity. I used to make nice playlists (tapes...) and share them around, and get some cool ones from friends with better taste than me, not so much anymore...

There's a whole other side to this that is positive, because there's some truth to the phrase "The things that you own end up owning you".

Maybe, just maybe, owning less things could be to our collective benefit.

I digitally collect music (directly digitally bought from the artists).

The author certainly hasn't experienced Roon...

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