For me, I never went to streaming platforms in the first place. For listening to music, I primarily use PowerAmp on my phone (or an old phone that has turned into a dedicated music device). I still have mp3 files in my library that I ripped from CDs or downloaded off of Napster (and later, Kazaa) from the late 90s. A lot was also paid for and downloaded from iTunes and Amazon, and quite a bit from Ruckus too (mid oughts, when I went to college). Amazon still offers the ability to pay for and download mp3s without DRM, which is the primary means through which I obtain music today. A small subset were downloaded from Youtube too.<p>I've never been too picky about quality, but it has worked great for me. Pretty much everyone around me has moved to streaming services though.
I haven’t downloaded anything from YouTube for what feels like forever so I want to ask: isn’t the sound quality mediocre at best?<p>Outside of that I believe that the convenience is the main driver of using streaming services. If you have a pipeline that does everything automatically it might work I guess.