In my teen years I spent a large fraction of my disposable income on music. A Spotify subscription is a vastly better value than buying whatever I could scrounge from a used CD store. Back then it was common for me to read about some semi-obscure recording and just have to wonder what it sounded like, because I had no hope of finding it in a store, and a special order was way out of my budget, especially for something I had no idea if I’d even like. Now I can listen to damn near anything that’s ever been published for less than I spent as a teenager. I find new music by listening to personalized recommendations instead of local radio stations. It’s just better in every way (except probably for the artists, but music has always been a cutthroat business so who knows).

A lot of subscription services suck and are just a way to milk customers, but streaming audio and video are not in that category.