While I'm not particularly interested in going back to physical media for music, I have mulled over the idea of dropping streaming and going back to buying albu

While I'm not particularly interested in going back to physical media for music, I have mulled over the idea of dropping streaming and going back to buying albums. Apart from the fact that using Apple Music is an absolutely dreadful experience, anecdotally I feel like I enjoy music less when I listen in the ways that streaming tries to funnel you into, i.e. playlists and radio-like experiences. The music becomes less of an active engagement and more just background noise. The sticking points I have are that the discovery aspect is huge—despite my reservations about playlists, I've discovered a lot of bands that I really love from them just popping up randomly. But also, the cost difference is a hard sell; I recognise that that's largely a function of streaming pricing being pretty much unsustainable for all but the biggest artists, but when for the same price as one album per month I can access a huge portion of all the music in the world it's difficult to say no to that.