Honestly, the benefit of streaming services is not being able to listen to music legally. It's discovery. Playing a song I like and getting recommended a similar song turn an artist I've never heard of has introduced me to a lot of great music. That's not something you can replicate by going to the webshop of your favorite band and buying their newest album.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That's something you could recreate with a scrobbling service like last.fm (don't use last.fm though, they are owned by CBS).

A quick Google search leads me to ListenBrains, which is also American, but operated by a non-profit.

I've used neither service and my music listening habits never relied on algorithmic recomendations, so I could totally be talking out of my ass here. But it could be worth a look.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

The problem there is that scrobblers aren't nearly as convenient as a streaming service. With a scrobbler I have to actively check out recommendations. With a streaming service I can just have it play related songs until I get one I really like.