I confess, I am part of this trend. And I just got into it, so I get no "before it was cool"-claim to fame. Not sure where that leaves me on the hipster-scale.
Buying CD's used to be a weekly ritual for me and I missed it for years. Putting on a new album on a Saturday afternoon with a beer or glass of wine while I start cooking is a very enjoyable moment for me. Now, obviously this was for the most part because I would have access to new music. That experience has not come back as I can put on anything on my laptop. However, there is a nice sense to putting on an album and being "forced" to play it from one end to the other. With streaming, I have a tolerance of 10-20 seconds of jarring music before I lose my patience and skip the track. Which is good but also means that I miss out on some of the tracks that take more effort and are in the "acquired taste" category. And in my experience, those tend to stay pleasant whereas the hits suddenly reach a threshold after which I can't stand listening to them any more.
Buying CD's used to be a weekly ritual for me and I missed it for years. Putting on a new album on a Saturday afternoon with a beer or glass of wine while I start cooking is a very enjoyable moment for me. Now, obviously this was for the most part because I would have access to new music. That experience has not come back as I can put on anything on my laptop. However, there is a nice sense to putting on an album and being "forced" to play it from one end to the other. With streaming, I have a tolerance of 10-20 seconds of jarring music before I lose my patience and skip the track. Which is good but also means that I miss out on some of the tracks that take more effort and are in the "acquired taste" category. And in my experience, those tend to stay pleasant whereas the hits suddenly reach a threshold after which I can't stand listening to them any more.