An interesting thought and provocative question.  Certainly I am finding technology is altering my viewing habits, so why not my listening habits?

Please forgive me for rambling in ignorance since I have no access to Spotify ... 

Some people are hoarders and like to "own" things.  Despite Steve Jobs saying "people do not wish to own movies" I still see people buying them.  And for example, why do I keep books I have read? why do I even buy them when there is a library within walking distance?

Some people are visual, look at the recent posts in the listening thread: the lovely LP covers; I still treasure my CDs for their visual artwork - and I get annoyed when iTunes picks a cover that does not match the one that is on my CD.

There is a question of ephemera (dare I add an "-bility" and murder the Queen's English?) ... it took me decades to replace my Dory Previn LPs with CDs.  So I am not sure I want to trust someone else to manage my ephemera ...

Will Gen X, Y and Z(?) long for their past and have "golden oldies", or will they only want the latest?  I suspect a lot of them will want to tap past memories: look at the box office successes of the Marvel and Transformer franchises.

So I am not sure Spotify et al will obsolete things ... but they clearly have a powerful addition to choice and convenience.

I still like to buy CDs and LPs. I am not a big fan of the digitalized music world of today. I need to have the music in my hands, if you can say so.

Digital music reminds me of something sloppy and careless, while analog music gives a more dedicated impression.

There is a certain feeling you get when you put on a record, rather than you push the 'play' button on your computer or whatever you might use.

I like to see myself as the young generation (20 years old), I am not sure I stand for the mainstream view on digital music but I know one thing for sure - I will always be true to analog music.

I really doubt it. The access one has on the internet to find almost any creative content cheaply and easily has torn the existing business model to shreds.

The likelihood as I see it is that we'll purchase "access" to media on an ongoing basis. Apple, Google, & Microsoft are already pushing cloud computing as a more efficient means of moving processing power around and it stands to reason that if we keep trying to put more and more giga & tera bytes onto our computers we'll always be playing catch-up as computers age. By keeping media and processing out of the actual machine, we can have lighter weight computers with better battery life (due to reduced processing) and less on-board memory to run out of.

Of course this will take a revolution in bandwidth equal to the revolution in memory (where memory is virtually free compared even to the housing and packaging that contains it).

For those who've yet to fully embrace digital music, I guess this is even less appealing than the form it takes today, but for those who have (myself included), I think it's a much more appealing scenario.

I have at least 6 different devices that I move media around on and each time there's a lengthy file transfer and none of the libraries are truly 100% in sync. I've also accidentally deleted my share of media requiring me to re-buy (or re-acquire) taking either more time, money, or both.

To be able to pay a small licensing fee and be able to stream a given song, album, show, or film to any authorized device sounds like a much less cumbersome way to do things.

Quality is another matter, but I have to believe that there will be more high-fidelity options as the media finds its legs. 

Hi Trip ... (what's a bikkel?)

I remember the pre-cloud concept of

I value my CD and record collection and I don't own that much digital music. But I think, for the reasons that Trip pointed out, cloud computing is the way forward. 

While I like the idea of a personal cloud, it sort of defeats the purpose of the cloud. The more federalized the resources, the more redundant. And yeah, tell me about wrestling with current connection speeds, but we're talking about The Future® here, so... who knows.

Oh and a Bikkel is a revolutionary remote that will change the way you interact with your single function devices.

Nope, I will never do cloud computing in any way form or fashion.

I don't even use webmail, but a proper mail-app with pop (not imap), in order to have my mails physically on my harddisk.

I will never use, say, Google Docs, because if I need to write a proper letter, I prefer to keep it somewhere that is not dependant on an internet connection. The notion that "you can access it anywhere" is bollocks, to put it frankly. And I haven't even mentioned the privacy issues.

"cloud computing" to me is newspeek for "less control over your work, products, media", and "less accessibility for me as a consumer/end user".

I'm reminded by the 3D interfaces shown on shows like Bones, 24, and NCIS. It may look cool firsthand, but really, it's counter productive.

(last edit: To me, and in danish, I consider it "drengerøveri", and for the british among us, that translates to something like "chavish" og "for chavs"  /end add.)

When it comes to subscription services of all sorts, what you're basically doingis renting your music. And in the long run, yes you may have access to a lot of music, track wise, but not only does it depend on a subscription and the continued renewal of such, you also have no control whatsoever when it comes to formats, quality and such.

Of course, it's a wet dream for the people offering such services: It's DRM 2.0 - they have full control over what you do with the music, and why shouldn't they? I mean, you haven't actually bought anything, have you.

So, in short: No, I cross my fingers that people in general aren't stupid enough to jump on the PR bangdwagon that "this is the future" (i.e. "This is so much better than what you have now"). That people will demand to stay in control. Or at least that enough will demand such things.

I'm reminded of the loudness war beginning in the 80's and still leaving contrails on the horizon of the music business.

Sorry, that was a bit longwinded, but forgive me 😡 lol

Edit: I have to add that I'm not some retrolover. I ditched my record player as soon as I could (back in the late 1980's), and all my audio (music and otherwise) are either in lossless formats or uncompressed PCM - not counting my podcasts, of course.

Nope, I will never do cloud computing in any way form or fashion.

It's either a very brave, very shortsighted, or very foolish person who says an unqualified 'never'.

😂