Music streaming is a hot market. Many services, including Spotify, Google Play Music, and Apple Music all offer a premium plan for $9.99 per month, but is it really worth it?
It Depends
Unfortunately, there is no yes or no answer to this question. Whether music streaming is worth it for you or not depends on your music consumption. There are a few things you have to ask yourself. Let’s start with some basic math. All of these services are $9.99/month plus tax. Let’s use a 9% tax rate for this example. That’s $10.89 per month, and $130.68 per year. The basic thing to ask yourself is, do you spend over $130.68 per year on buying music? If you answered yes, music streaming might be for you.
More Details
Going beyond the pure cost, there are a few other things to consider. One thing to ask yourself is, how often do you listen to music? If you listen to music for an hour or more per day, music streaming may be for you. If you listen less than an hour per day, you may want to skip it. Next, what variety of music do you listen to? If you’re always wanting fresh, new music, I’d recommend music streaming. If you just listen to the old classics over and over again, you might want to stick with buying music. The last, and most important thing to consider is, do are the artists you listen to available on your music streaming platform of choice? While almost every artist is on these services, there are a few artists – *cough* Taylor Swift – who are only one a certain platform, or just aren’t on music streaming entirely.
But I Don’t Own The Music!
This is one of the most common arguments
against music streaming. “I’m paying $10/month and I don’t even own the music.” No, you don’t. Yes, you’ll be paying $10/month for life. But in all honesty, could you afford to buy the over 30 million songs in Spotify’s library? I didn’t think so. The advantage to music streaming is that you have access to millions of songs. Something that would never be possible if you purchase your music.
Just Try And See
At the end of the day, none of these services have contracts. They are all cancel at any time. With that being said, if you think music streaming might be for you, I would recommend that you get the free trial – and for full effect – one month of paid service. That way, you can really see for yourself if your $10 was well spent or not.
Conclusion
As an off and on subscriber for several years, I’ve determined that music streaming just makes sense for me. Music streaming is definitely worth it if you listen to fresh, new music all the time, and if you spend over $130 per year on purchasing music. If not, you may want to consider sticking to purchasing music.
