I cancelled my Spotify account some time ago due to a band I liked at the time (Thank You Scientist) having their catalogue dropped making me realize that I do, in fact, own nothing -- but I was not happy about it.
During a trip back to my parents a couple of years ago I found an old CD binder of mine that was packed full of old music that I thought I had lost, so I took that home with me and started the slow process of ripping music to my hard drive. Foregoing MP3 I decided to rip them as WAVs since I have a big disk and a pair of Sony M4s and it was like a new sonic universe had been opened to me.
I have about 200 CDs in my collection now, a lot of them old ones that I did end up losing but repurchasing. There's apparently a niche enough market for them that some arbitrage can happen. For instance, using Amazon as a spot market I found a CD for $5 used at a local book store that sells for $40 minimum at Bezosland (Dance Gavin Dance - Mothership for those curious). My mom has also come in clutch, finding Drive Like Jehu - Yank Crime at some flea market local to her and throwing it into my Christmas stocking last year.
I can't stress the quality of the music with a good set of headphones and a lossless rip. And best of all I own this music forever.
I've been compiling a library of blurays, music cds, and dvds from local thrift stores. The ones near me sell any media for $2. New sealed, or an entire TV series, doesnt matter.
Got the entire Clone Wars series for $2 because it has the same blanket media price as all the individual cds. It's crazy what people give away just because it's out of style. Someday, as the streaming services get worse selection and more expensive, they'll regret this and wish they had their original library back. For now it's to our benefit.
I've been scanning the thrift stores for 2-3 years, gradually accumulating stuff as it comes in. I think I have over 500 movies and complete series at this point, plus an uncounted amount of music cds, most of the media library I've ever consumed.
Started ripping them last weekend, and backing up the files multiple places-- on my pc, on spare sata ssds, etc.
But my favorite media player is a cheap chinese emulator handheld. Loaded up a pair of sd cards, one with game isos, one with mkv movies.
Now I can play all my ps1, dreamcast, snes, gba, etc (anything older than ps2) roms and all my movies on one handheld device. I can even output them to my home theater setup drm free, with hdmi-out. Its hardware is about as strong as a potato, but that's more than enough. Technology has long since outstripped the demands of hd video and emulated ps1 games.
Meanwhile when I try to stream movies from amazon, they tell me my gaming pc doesnt support HD video and to get a verified device. Ok. Bye Amazon.