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Comment by os2warpman | Hacker News Reader

The good old days sucked. I have a large collection of CDs that I "own" and they're in a box in the basement because the medium is irrelevant.

For less than the price of 1 CD per month (and I used to buy WAY more than 1 CD per month) I have access to a near-infinite amount of music.

I've added 49 full or partial albums to my library since 1/1/2025 for $78. And some of that stuff has an EXACT AND PRECISE 0.00% of having ever been carried in a physical shop on physical media such as: a DJ set consisting mainly of remixes of The Hacker tracks from the late 90s, recorded by a Canadian DJ in a Frankfurt Studio in 2025.

We're eating perfectly-prepared filet every day and people are reminiscing about school cafeteria salisbury steak.

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> The good old days sucked

They didn’t suck. Like many situations that were resource constrained they had unique positive attributes even though you have a strong preference for the alternative strictly speaking.

Sometimes being constrained forces you to have a different and better experience, like when you’re young and broke and have adventures, or there’s a power outage and the city turns into a party, or when you miss the bus and have an interesting walk.

I was and am a musician and massive music fan. I miss the experience of being on a long train trip with only 10 CDs and really deeply connecting to each of them with no distractions. I miss discovering something on a record store clerk’s recommendation. And it’s not fair to say I just miss being younger those were specific experiences and they were pleasant.

I’m not saying I’m going back, or that we all should. I am happy with unlimited access to everything that’s also great. But back then it didn’t suck, it was great in a different way.

I think the vast majority of people don't really give a shit about music and don't think about it deeply. They just need something to listen to.

> For less than the price of 1 CD per month (and I used to buy WAY more than 1 CD per month) I have access to a near-infinite amount of music.

> I've added 49 full or partial albums to my library since 1/1/2025 for $78.

Counterpoint: I haven't bought a record in over 10 years. That is, I have added exactly zero full or partial albums to my library since 1/1/2014. Even though I stopped spending money, I didn't have to stop (legally) listening.

If your numbers are correct, this (being able to play the music that I've listened to over the last 10 years) is something would have cost me over $1500.

> We're eating perfectly-prepared filet every day and people are reminiscing about school cafeteria salisbury steak.

I stopped digging, but from what I hear in the mainstream it tastes more like plastic burger than triple-a filet.

>but from what I hear in the mainstream it tastes more like plastic burger than triple-a filet.

When has it not?

Honestly it was better before, in france most of pop songs are utter s*t now, it used to be a blend of various degrees, from laughable dumpster fire to nice to great timeless pop music (goldman, cabrel, balavoine). You could say the same about brit pop, I still dig the police, dire straits, in ways that surprise me even today. There really was, afaik, a higher base floor.

This is well said and I agree that nostalgia for old systems is overdone… os2warpman :-)

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