There are still many places to get downloadable DRM-free music. One of which is, ironically, Appple's iTunes Music Store (but not the newer Apple Music!). Then there's Amazon Music and Bandcamp. And that's before we get into the numerous regional providers. It's easy to buy CDs for most stuff, as well.

So I would argue the contrary: this is the golden age of personally owned digital music collections. If you do want such a thing, it's very easy to amass a collection well into into hundreds of gigabytes through legally available and conveniently accessible ways. It's just that the majority seems to prefer subscription model for most of their music (although many still purchase their favorites).

I wish things were as good for videos as they are for music. There, the trend seems to be the opposite, with platforms increasingly locking down high-quality downloads and pivoting towards pure streaming. You can still buy DVD or BluRay, but prices on those are increasingly insane (like $100+ for 4K).

To be fair, there are both positives and negatives. The positive is that the barrier of entry is almost negligible. For less than 20 bucks, anyone can get their song onto the largest platform in the world, accessible to anyone on it, in days. Compared to handing out CDs or cassettes, this is a universe of difference. You no longer have to pander to major record labels to get your music out there.

The downside, of course, is monetization. Even if you get a million streams, which is extremely difficult, you'll only make $4-7k.

I think they’re referring to something different than you are.

You can buy the same music as digital files or as blue ray. Don't use spotify if you don't want to.

My 91-year-old grandmother used to use Audacity to record audio from such services on her PC. She would the edit the .mp3 metadata and put them on an old-school iPod. I told her that I would kick her out of the house and send her to a nursing home unless she started entering into license agreements and mailing royalty checks to the appropriate parties, and she hasn't done this since, so a win for morality I guess.