Hundreds of dollars? Maybe if you’re an audiophile. Normal people buy most of their music second hand. If you are really poor, prerecorded cassettes are a quarter to 50 cents at your nearest thrift store. CDs can go up to a dollar and you can get a decent vinyl record from half a dollar to 2.
If you are willing to spend it you can buy second hand CDs or vinyls for less the 10 dollars at the record store, and they usually have a good enough selection such that you can most likely pick up that record you never found in the thrift store.
I only buy new music from newer artists (mostly from Bandcamp) and yet a CD is usually around $10-15 with vinyl maybe $5 more (+ shipping). But I take comfort that this money goes to supporting the artists, so it is worth it.
Usually I spend about $20-30 dollars on music a month (with some months spending more on expensive records). But with every new album I buy, it is added to my collection so I can listen to it again without needing to buy it again.
> Hundreds of dollars? Maybe if you’re an audiophile.
No, the math works out even if you're a less-than-average consumer or casual listener.
An album is at minimum $10. If you listen to more than one new album a month, you're coming out ahead if you use a streaming service. If Spotify shuts down, there's at least two other competitors in this space for me to go to. But none of them look like they're going anywhere.
> But with every new album I buy, it is added to my collection so I can listen to it again without needing to buy it again
Until the record wears out, or gets stolen, or breaks for a variety of reasons.
Parent specifically said hundreds of dollars per month. Hundreds of dollars per year is not a lot of money to pay for music.
Also when buying new albums it is not unreasonable to expect the artist to get some money for their work. And its quite hard to reason that they do if they have to share your $10 subscription fee every month.
If you are willing to spend it you can buy second hand CDs or vinyls for less the 10 dollars at the record store, and they usually have a good enough selection such that you can most likely pick up that record you never found in the thrift store.
I only buy new music from newer artists (mostly from Bandcamp) and yet a CD is usually around $10-15 with vinyl maybe $5 more (+ shipping). But I take comfort that this money goes to supporting the artists, so it is worth it.
Usually I spend about $20-30 dollars on music a month (with some months spending more on expensive records). But with every new album I buy, it is added to my collection so I can listen to it again without needing to buy it again.