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I think CDs are still a very good option when you think about how you intend to maintain your digital collection in the next 30 years. CDs I bought in the earl

I think CDs are still a very good option when you think about how you intend to maintain your digital collection in the next 30 years. CDs I bought in the early 90s are there, in a box. I'd like to see people's iTunes collections in 30 years... Yes, I know that CDs have a shelf-life and that real long term storage would involve backing them up. But CDs still seem a better option than the current alternatives. Edit: The issue even with a DRM-free local iTunes library is: how are people going to keep that over 30 years? If you have a CD you only need to have a CD/DVD/Bluray player, which are still ubiquitous, and to push a button. But for a local iTunes library you need IT admin skills to manage it, to back it up, to transfer it from one machine to the next, perhaps to understand that you can access the music without iTunes, etc. The vast majority of the public don't know how to do that.

teekert 7y ago
"I'd like to see people's iTunes collection in 30 years" Might look different and be called different, but I bet there is some service offering most music in existence in 2050.
- NotPaidToPost 7y ago
  Are you saying that they will be lost and people will keep buying it again and again?
  - teekert 7y ago
    People will subscribe to another service. But you mean the local iTunes library? Isn't that DRM free? I mean having DRM on it still makes it their music that you "rent", so basically a subscription service. My father was so ethical and bought a lot of music from some service of his ISP (Planet music or something), it is all lost. I'd never pay for DRMed music. At least with Spotify you know you don't own anything and just pay for access to a lot of stuff as long as you pay.
- AlexandrB 7y ago
  I have at least a dozen albums that are not on any music service today! In 30 years they’ll be impossible to find in any form. If you get deep into any small/independent music scene you’ll find CDs are still king.
  - grosun 7y ago
    ... or bandcamp (increasingly so in my experience)
Crinus 7y ago
> I'd like to see people's iTunes collections in 30 years... I bought my first album from iTunes 10 years ago and it is right there in my external HDD since iTunes does not have any sort of DRM anymore (it was removed years ago). Unless computers in 20 years do not allow people to have local data and force them to use The Cloud (at which point i'd probably stop using computers altogether outside of necessity), i do not see them disappear. If fact i rebought several albums i had in CD format because i lost some of the CDs after moving and a bunch of M4A files in a folder are more convenient than a bunch of CDs in a box (although TBH i do get the nice feeling of having something to look at that is physical... but only for things i really like and for me that is usually games not music).
josteink 7y ago
> The issue even with a DRM-free local iTunes library is: how are people going to keep that over 30 years? The same place and way you keep all your other digitally purchased music. Just like the music I buy from bleep, Bandcamp or directly from artists. What’s the problem here?
- shrimp_emoji 7y ago
  LOL. This. This discussion here is surreal to me. Ways to enjoy music: stream it on Spotify or insert a CD. Pick one. ????? I mean, DRMless, local media doesn't obviate streaming which has its own valuable niche, from discovery to the fact that my 200 GB music library cannot fit on my phone, but that library is on Dropbox. In 30 years, the format might be unrecognizable, but... I don't get the problem either. >But for a local iTunes library you need IT admin skills to manage it, to back it up, to transfer it from one machine to the next, perhaps to understand that you can access the music without iTunes, etc. The vast majority of the public don't know how to do that. Oh, we're operating from an assumption of pre-Internet tech literacy. Then, yeah, I don't know. The computer-as-radio/physical-media dichotomy might be the way to go. Enjoy those CDs. uwu Put thing in thing and hear sound. Zug zug
Tepix 7y ago
Backing them up on MDISC DVDs or Blu-Rays is doable. 6 CDs per DVD if you want to store them bit-by-bit. 12 CDs if you go for losless compression. Around 35 CDs per DVD if you do 256kbit/s MP3 or something like that. MDISC are supposed to last for 100 years or so.
lozf 7y ago
I'd rather maintain a file system of FLAC files, and skip anything like iTunes that can potentially mess with the library. Then it's just data that gets backed up with anything else worth keeping. Add an extra 1MB of space for the FLAC source code if you're really paranoid.
TheCondor 7y ago
Pressed CDs do quite well over time if you keep them in a dry and cool place. I do think finding optical drives will be the rub, they are already becoming niche products. With SSD prices as they are, it’s not hard to imagine a world without SATA connectors before too long. It’s really hard to imagine that there won’t be some Asian company selling optical drives with usb-x connectors or something but I expect people thought that about various floppy disks over the years too. And then there is the software to read and rip it, probably not super difficult but you never know. There is an awful lot of music simply not streamed, if you live near a college town or in any city of say 80,000 people then there probably some local bands, chances are good they’ve recorded some stuff and outside of that run of CDs, the music is nowhere else. It’s not like we’re losing part of the Beatles catalog exactly but if you’ve bonded and heard that band a few times it might be meaningful.
- criddell 7y ago
  > keep them in a dry and cool place I just pulled mine out of the attic after they had been sitting there for more than a decade. It's dry up there, but not cool at all. I'm in central Texas and in the summer you can only be up there for a few minutes at a time because it's so hot. I bought dbPowerAmp and ripped them all to ALAC. Only a couple of them couldn't be accurately ripped and that's because of scratches on them (some of them are from the mid-80's and have had rough lives). I guess what I'm trying to say is that they are remarkably durable.
  - eropple 7y ago
    Worth noting (not for you, just in general)--pressed CDs are very durable but CD-Rs, due to their organic ink, generally aren't. Don't rely on them for archiving.
- icebraining 7y ago
  > It’s really hard to imagine that there won’t be some Asian company selling optical drives with usb-x connectors or something but I expect people thought that about various floppy disks over the years too. Well, you can buy a new 3.5" floppy disk drive for $15 right now. The problem are proprietary formats, like Zip disks - just avoid those.
glassesman 7y ago
>But for a local iTunes library you need IT admin skills to manage it... If we're talking actual files, it's just basic file management skills, and maybe some simple knowledge of ripping (assuming we're not taking the EAC lossless route). Almost everyone in my office (which are mainly non-tech people) have the former. >...how are people going to keep that over 30 years? It's way more likely someone's going to burgle my remaining CDs than they are to destroy every instance of my virtual collection.
ubermonkey 7y ago
>The issue even with a DRM-free local iTunes library is: how are people going to keep that over 30 years? Parts of my MP3 library are 20 years old. Why do you think keeping them spinning a few more decades will be any harder? >But for a local iTunes library you need IT admin skills to manage it, to back it up, to transfer it from one machine to the next, perhaps to understand that you can access the music without iTunes, etc. The vast majority of the public don't know how to do that. Honestly, I think that's why streaming is taking over. Apple's approach to solving the sync problem was to rethink the whole paradigm, and so we got Apple Music instead of smarter iPhone/iPod sync. Sure, they get service revenue in the bargain, but to me it seems like an easy play.
aembleton 7y ago
I ripped my CDs 20 years ago and kept that library, moving it between machines and backing up to the cloud. I don't see why I can't keep it alive for another 20 or 30 years. Over time this has become much easier as storage has become smaller and cheaper. I now have my entire music collection on a microSD card on my phone which as well as being handy is also another backup. Only real problem is that I ripped them at 128Kbps. For some tracks I've gone back and re-done them at a higher bitrate.

teekert 7y ago

"I'd like to see people's iTunes collection in 30 years" Might look different and be called different, but I bet there is some service offering most music in existence in 2050.

NotPaidToPost 7y ago
Are you saying that they will be lost and people will keep buying it again and again?
- teekert 7y ago
  People will subscribe to another service. But you mean the local iTunes library? Isn't that DRM free? I mean having DRM on it still makes it their music that you "rent", so basically a subscription service. My father was so ethical and bought a lot of music from some service of his ISP (Planet music or something), it is all lost. I'd never pay for DRMed music. At least with Spotify you know you don't own anything and just pay for access to a lot of stuff as long as you pay.
AlexandrB 7y ago
I have at least a dozen albums that are not on any music service today! In 30 years they’ll be impossible to find in any form. If you get deep into any small/independent music scene you’ll find CDs are still king.
- grosun 7y ago
  ... or bandcamp (increasingly so in my experience)

Crinus 7y ago

> I'd like to see people's iTunes collections in 30 years... I bought my first album from iTunes 10 years ago and it is right there in my external HDD since iTunes does not have any sort of DRM anymore (it was removed years ago). Unless computers in 20 years do not allow people to have local data and force them to use The Cloud (at which point i'd probably stop using computers altogether outside of necessity), i do not see them disappear. If fact i rebought several albums i had in CD format because i lost some of the CDs after moving and a bunch of M4A files in a folder are more convenient than a bunch of CDs in a box (although TBH i do get the nice feeling of having something to look at that is physical... but only for things i really like and for me that is usually games not music).

josteink 7y ago

> The issue even with a DRM-free local iTunes library is: how are people going to keep that over 30 years? The same place and way you keep all your other digitally purchased music. Just like the music I buy from bleep, Bandcamp or directly from artists. What’s the problem here?

shrimp_emoji 7y ago
LOL. This. This discussion here is surreal to me. Ways to enjoy music: stream it on Spotify or insert a CD. Pick one. ????? I mean, DRMless, local media doesn't obviate streaming which has its own valuable niche, from discovery to the fact that my 200 GB music library cannot fit on my phone, but that library is on Dropbox. In 30 years, the format might be unrecognizable, but... I don't get the problem either. >But for a local iTunes library you need IT admin skills to manage it, to back it up, to transfer it from one machine to the next, perhaps to understand that you can access the music without iTunes, etc. The vast majority of the public don't know how to do that. Oh, we're operating from an assumption of pre-Internet tech literacy. Then, yeah, I don't know. The computer-as-radio/physical-media dichotomy might be the way to go. Enjoy those CDs. uwu Put thing in thing and hear sound. Zug zug

Tepix 7y ago

Backing them up on MDISC DVDs or Blu-Rays is doable. 6 CDs per DVD if you want to store them bit-by-bit. 12 CDs if you go for losless compression. Around 35 CDs per DVD if you do 256kbit/s MP3 or something like that. MDISC are supposed to last for 100 years or so.

lozf 7y ago

I'd rather maintain a file system of FLAC files, and skip anything like iTunes that can potentially mess with the library. Then it's just data that gets backed up with anything else worth keeping. Add an extra 1MB of space for the FLAC source code if you're really paranoid.

TheCondor 7y ago

Pressed CDs do quite well over time if you keep them in a dry and cool place. I do think finding optical drives will be the rub, they are already becoming niche products. With SSD prices as they are, it’s not hard to imagine a world without SATA connectors before too long. It’s really hard to imagine that there won’t be some Asian company selling optical drives with usb-x connectors or something but I expect people thought that about various floppy disks over the years too. And then there is the software to read and rip it, probably not super difficult but you never know. There is an awful lot of music simply not streamed, if you live near a college town or in any city of say 80,000 people then there probably some local bands, chances are good they’ve recorded some stuff and outside of that run of CDs, the music is nowhere else. It’s not like we’re losing part of the Beatles catalog exactly but if you’ve bonded and heard that band a few times it might be meaningful.

criddell 7y ago
> keep them in a dry and cool place I just pulled mine out of the attic after they had been sitting there for more than a decade. It's dry up there, but not cool at all. I'm in central Texas and in the summer you can only be up there for a few minutes at a time because it's so hot. I bought dbPowerAmp and ripped them all to ALAC. Only a couple of them couldn't be accurately ripped and that's because of scratches on them (some of them are from the mid-80's and have had rough lives). I guess what I'm trying to say is that they are remarkably durable.
- eropple 7y ago
  Worth noting (not for you, just in general)--pressed CDs are very durable but CD-Rs, due to their organic ink, generally aren't. Don't rely on them for archiving.
icebraining 7y ago
> It’s really hard to imagine that there won’t be some Asian company selling optical drives with usb-x connectors or something but I expect people thought that about various floppy disks over the years too. Well, you can buy a new 3.5" floppy disk drive for $15 right now. The problem are proprietary formats, like Zip disks - just avoid those.

glassesman 7y ago

>But for a local iTunes library you need IT admin skills to manage it... If we're talking actual files, it's just basic file management skills, and maybe some simple knowledge of ripping (assuming we're not taking the EAC lossless route). Almost everyone in my office (which are mainly non-tech people) have the former. >...how are people going to keep that over 30 years? It's way more likely someone's going to burgle my remaining CDs than they are to destroy every instance of my virtual collection.

ubermonkey 7y ago

>The issue even with a DRM-free local iTunes library is: how are people going to keep that over 30 years? Parts of my MP3 library are 20 years old. Why do you think keeping them spinning a few more decades will be any harder? >But for a local iTunes library you need IT admin skills to manage it, to back it up, to transfer it from one machine to the next, perhaps to understand that you can access the music without iTunes, etc. The vast majority of the public don't know how to do that. Honestly, I think that's why streaming is taking over. Apple's approach to solving the sync problem was to rethink the whole paradigm, and so we got Apple Music instead of smarter iPhone/iPod sync. Sure, they get service revenue in the bargain, but to me it seems like an easy play.

aembleton 7y ago

I ripped my CDs 20 years ago and kept that library, moving it between machines and backing up to the cloud. I don't see why I can't keep it alive for another 20 or 30 years. Over time this has become much easier as storage has become smaller and cheaper. I now have my entire music collection on a microSD card on my phone which as well as being handy is also another backup. Only real problem is that I ripped them at 128Kbps. For some tracks I've gone back and re-done them at a higher bitrate.