Why media fans want to escape algorithms with CDs, DVDs and vinyl

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/oct/02/physical-media-fans-streaming-algorithms-cds-dvds-vinyl

34•beardyw•1h ago

Comments

pkthunder•50m ago

I’ve been going through my own personal revival of physical media - mostly audio. I don’t miss streaming at all.

Every CD I buy gets ripped to a NAS that hosts the music behind Navidrone where I can stream to my vehicle using Play:Sub (thanks to Tailscale for enabling all of this to work for me!).

I am just so enamored with being able to get the best of both worlds - my own music, anywhere.

I do wish I could figure out some sort of recommendation system to find new magic, though. Obviously not to steam new/unowned songs, just to point me in a direction next time I go to the store.

Hoodedcrow•45m ago

Seems like CDs are redundant here though, given that they get digitized anyway.

pkthunder•39m ago

I have a home audio setup to play them on, don’t worry :).

Also, buying directly from artists (when you can) is a good way to support them.

pmontra•2m ago

They are the backup. A music CD can last for a long time. Proof: my father CDs from about 35 years ago still work.

pkthunder•41s ago

Also just fun to be a plain-old jockey when you have company over, rather than just let “Appotifydal Top 3”

Dreami•44m ago

I have a huge collection (100-200) of CDs from a relative that I would like to store the same way. Can you explain your setup?

pkthunder•31m ago

I’d love to. I’m working off memory right now, but it’s nothing fancy.

I’ve got abcde[0] set up to handle the digitizing, navidrome[1] is set up to serve the content from a home lab server/NAS over Subsonic[2].

Play:Sub[3] is an iOS application that works with Subsonic. Just an audio receiver at this point, the app lets me “just play something” which is quite nice. Can “play a random album” for example.

Tailscale just enables this off-LAN.

Happy to give more info if you need!

[0] https://linux.die.net/man/1/abcde

[1] https://www.navidrome.org/

[2] https://www.subsonic.org/

[3] https://michaelsapps.dk/playsubapp/

frameset•37m ago

Last.fm is still around. Some Navidrome clients work with it, and it can point you to artists you might like.

pkthunder•30m ago

Love it, but honestly I’m trying to decouple from services like this.

Although, it’s not a critical-path item..

anticorporate•25m ago

https://listenbrainz.org/ is an open source alternative to Last.fm that I can confirm works with Navidrome. You can also self host it if you would prefer to keep your listen history private.

pkthunder•22m ago

Love love love to see this, thank you for making my day!

alin23•19m ago

I got myself an iPod Nano recently and love curating my songs to fit the 8GB [0]

But I have the same problem of trying to find recommendations. Whenever I talk about music with my brother and friends, that's when I discover the best music, but that happens rarely nowadays.

So with the help of Claude, I've revived my 10 year old project on finding music based on Spotify tracks and liked songs: https://noiseblend.com

Completely free, haven't shared it much because it's more of a personal thing than something I want public. But maybe it comes in handy for some people here.

[0] https://files.alinpanaitiu.com/ipod-nano.mp4

pkthunder•14m ago

Took a quick look at Noiseblend, seems nice! Will play around a bit more with it when I’m actually at a computer, but I find that I end up getting into a downward spiral of recommendations (not from yours - just in general) that reinforces what I listen to, versus expanding based on what I listen to.

I listen to a good amount of underground hip hop/backpack rap kind of stuff and I find that so many recommendation systems just recommend what I already listen to.

Oddly enough, I randomly asked Claude one day and got three novel album recommendations that no other service really gave me :shrug:

alin23•7m ago

Oh tell me about it, it's so hard to expand into other genres using online services.. Noiseblend is no better at it since it relies on the same data.

I mean, in its 30-50 recommended albums, one might be just the one I might be looking for, but how am I going to find it? Am I supposed to sit through 29 albums I don't really like, just to find that?

That's why friends are the best here, they act like impromptu curators :)

But on some occasions, I find Noiseblend useful when I hear a song at a cafe or restaurant or some friends' place, "shazam" it, then put it through Noiseblend and get dropped into a musical area I might have never looked into otherwise.

Frieren•50m ago

For me, the easy one is books. I love books, both for their content and as physical objects.

I love my pdf folder with a million papers, documents, etc. Sorted and easy available. But mentally it does not compare with my library.

In a trip I will bring my tablet to read books. It is practical and if a book does not click I have many more. At home I prefer the physical thing.

None of them comes, at least directly, from algorithms. I add books to my list of purchases when they get mention on YouTube, another books, news, or even here.

Many years ago I used Amazon book store suggestions because they were extremely good. But that was the time before enshitification when they were trying to give you the book the you will like the most not the one that will give them more profit.

Galanwe•43m ago

I love books as well, but I find it hard to keep my physical library growth comparable to my physical books.

The majority of the books and authors I follow are now on Patreon, and there is just no easy way to get a hard copy, or even a digital copy for that matter. I read book 11 on Patreon while Amazon is publishing book 8...

Now that is good for authors I guess, they have a better, more stable revenue source. But I don't own books anymore, can't read them offline, which is very annoying.

Hoodedcrow•42m ago

Books are also the one thing I much prefer to have physically! I can usually get fiction in my language (mostly in secondhand bookstores now), but I still have to get most things digitally. Most books I read are in English and my country isn't English-speaking, so getting them would cost a fortune. And sometimes out-of-print books even in my language are also hard to find due to scarcity. So pdfs and epubs it is.

mnnuu•39m ago

I'm an avid tape collector, and I especially love the small 'mixtape' labels. Every month, I get two or three mixtapes from a handful of little labels. They can have anything on them. It's always exciting to get one in the post and sit down to listen to it.

pkthunder•25m ago

Would love to hear more about the mixtape labels.

Enfi•16m ago

That’s lovely! Please, can you tell more about your setup and where you buy fresh tapes?

mistyvales•38m ago

I never stopped buying. Let's just say my collection of various physical media is.. unruly at best. Moving is a pain but I don't look back.

Note that I do still stream and buy digital on Bandcamp though.

smackeyacky•36m ago

I used to like to buy TDK tapes second hand and listen to the mixes. Almost every one had something obscure on it I loved but they have dried up over the last 12 months.

intrasight•11m ago

You can escape algorithms by choosing what you consume, regardless of what platform you're using. I had digitized my CD collection 15 years ago. but I never listened to those. I purchase misic directly from artists (Bandcamp), I don't buy physical media. And if their stuff is also on Apple Music, that's where I listen.

bsoqk•6m ago

I am a "media fan" and algorithms (going back to last.fm) have make me discover so much music that it's not even funny. The idea of "escaping algorithms" is a net negative for me.

jonplackett•4m ago

I just finished making a ‘physical’ music system for my daughter.

The inverted commas are because it’s actually all MP3s that are stored on a phone.

But the phone is in a box

Connected to a speaker

Running an app I made that plays playlists when she places an nfc card on the box

Basically it’s a bootleg Yoto / Tonie box but completely free, and our own music.

Also got a desktop app where I download stuff, make plays lists and it auto syncs to the phone.

She actually really likes it. Having a physical sense of what you own feels good!

I wish I could take all the credit but Codex helped, a bit…

OroPla•2m ago

I never went to streaming in the first place. It never seemed like a good deal for anything.

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