Comment by jerlam
5 days ago
MP3s have been on the way out for a long time, being replaced by music subscriptions. And "MP3 player" is a feature of other devices, not its own device. Both my Apple Watch and Garmin watch can store and play MP3s without a phone; both also support music subscriptions.
The only market is in the "enthusiast audiophile flac player thing that costs way too much", just like it is currently for vinyls and DVD players.
> MP3s have been on the way out for a long time, being replaced by music subscriptions
I both have music subscriptions (Spotify for the wife, Qobuz for me: Qobuz streams lossless but sucks for music discovery) and good old files (mostly FLAC files indeed except some very old, impossible-to-find, live recordings I only have in mp3). One does not prevent the other.
Also some people self-host or partially self-host things: you stream from a server you own: be it family pictures (I'm Mich / immich), movies and/or music (Plex or Jellyfin). And, well, the stream doesn't spring out of thin air: there are good old files on the server.
Lastly: some music streaming services allows you to buy albums and/or individual songs, DRM-free.
I'm not saying that MP3 and CDs and cassette tapes and vinyl don't work. But they are on the decline and no company would be wise to make a mass-market device specifically for them, when the mass market has moved on.
These days Spotify can stream FLACs as well, it's a setting.
I buy films from local charity shops for €1/film, but it seems the local electronics stores are not selling many DVD players any more.
It seems like streaming "won", which is disappointing.
Considering both Xbox and PlayStation consoles support DVDs I think there will be quite a long tail for playing DVDs.
Disappointing, but that's the harsh reality of how the market works. Convenience wins. Which is why physical media sales first suffered (allegedly) from piracy; I don't think it was primarily to avoid paying for stuff, but because having years of music in a winamp playlist was much less hassle than managing a CD collection.
Piracy was ultimately defeated or at least greatly diminished thanks to streaming services. It's making a comeback now due to increased prices and fragmentation though (and to a degree, the politics of prominent figures at these streaming companies - artists pulled their music from Spotify out of protest).