Piracy

Maybe its a generational thing but I prefer having a Plex / Plexamp serveur with all my music as FLAC on my home server. I can better curate my collection and it's available everywhere.

Support your favourite artists by buying their merchandise and going to shows.

I have Ampache running on a self hosted server, which has desktop and mobile apps.

Give ViMusic (for Android) a try. It's free in F-Droid. It's like Spotify but uses Youtube Music for the backend.

I have a Spotify account and never use it anymore. ViMusic is great.

Local library for me for sure!

I discover new music through friends, Shazam, and browsing Youtube Music.

With ~6k songs I don't get bored that fast.

I stream because it helps me discover new artists, and makes it effortless. I do have my own library though.

https://github.com/Team-xManager/xManager/releases Free Spotify

Mostly, I've downloaded all my music and stream through Navidrome. But I'll use above in a pinch.

Personal library is 0 compromise, except for the convenience. There are plenty of songs in my library that aren't on Spotify or any other. All my music is FLAC. Uncensorable. I get star ratings and favorites.

I stream music because you can get just about everything with any service you choose at a reasonable price. I don't do the same for movies and TV shows because that option isn't available. If it was, my laziness may get me to stop pirating.

I agree with OP that it is best to have DRM free files. For music recommendations, I use a Scrobber plugin for Last.fm.

Local library. I don't want to pay for things I don't own. Streaming services also can remove/ disable music any time. I also don't need recommendation algorithms I think they are biased. I can easily discover new artists on blogs

Not being an avid consumer of music, I only use Spotify.

Specifically to listen in my car or at home. I don’t use it anywhere else, so I don’t need to keep a offline library.

Streaming for discovery, private tracker to get it in FLAC.