Several of us in this thread. My reason is simple: I do like the "CD quality" and do like to own my music. I do buy CDs and I do rip them to FLAC (for listening at home and as a backup) and convert them to mp3 for my silly car (which accepts mp3 and wav but not FLAC).

I do agree that vinyls do look better though.

I, for one.

I still own well over 1500 vinyl albums from the 1960s to 1980s. (From a tape mastering service that closed down in the 1990s, so pristine vinyl, radio stations would play the tapes made from the records.) Sentimental value…never played now.

Own lots of music digitally purchased or copied from owned CDs. Over the years most of the transferred-from-CD music has been replaced by purchased digital for the convenience of using iTunes. My iTunes library is very large. I can listen to my library for half a year without ever repeating a track.

I own 1000+ CDs. And I regularly purchase more. Often after having purchased one or more tracks from the album online.

If I find an entire album I really like, I don’t mind the expense of purchasing a CD and online content. But it has to be really good and an artist I want to support.

1. I don’t need an Internet connection to play my CD. A $30 CD player will suffice.

2. My CD will still be making its music freely available for 50-100 years.

3. There is no recurring per-use/per-month fee for playing my CD.

4. No company can arbitrarily make my CD music unavailable.

5. My CD tracks are good enough sound quality for me, except perhaps loudness war legacy tracks. Skip-free, scratch-free, high fidelity, great dynamic range. On a $30 CD player.

6. My CD isn’t part of any playlist market manipulation. My CD isn’t trying to sell me anything other than itself. It’s all about the music, man.

7. I can resell my CD if I so choose to someone else who shares my interest in my CD. After deleting any backup digital copy I may have made of my CD.

8. My CD is part of a simple musical ecosystem. I can take my CD from my home stereo to my portable player to my car player without Internet glitches or firmware updates or software incompatibilities or rights management nightmares.

9. My new CD costs $15-20, as little as $2-3 in boxed sets or used. One time, upfront. Every use for the next 50 years or more costs nothing…it doesn’t degrade with wear.

10. With CD changers, a set of my CDs can provide much of the same functions as online or streaming playlists. For a one-time $150 cost. No Internet. No hassles.

11. My CDs reflect and physically document my (hopefully) evolved taste in music. I do trust other music enthusiasts’ recommendations on what I might eventually purchase, but wouldn’t trust your average SV algorithm for immediate shut-up-and-listen playlists.

I like my CDs. I selectively want to add to my collection. And the relative difficulty in getting used CDs that are out-of-print nowadays suggests that others share my predilection. My CD collection might be worth today more than its original purchase price, or may be in the future if streaming doesn’t clean up its act.