High Quality Offline Music
After having on on-and-off relationship with streaming platforms for several years, in 2023 I decided to let my Spotify Premium subscription lapse and instead go back to a traditional local ( offline ) music catalog. My primary motivation was the lack of proper internet infrastructure in various places, that made it increasingly hard to stream from an online source. In addition, Spotify in particular became more and more of an annoyance, logging me out of my devices every once in a while, because they thought they had detected unauthorized access, or because I was streaming from a source IP that the service didn’t seem to like. On top of that, the increasing privacy concerns, the lack of proper high-quality sound formats and the controversies around the streaming price models and Spotify’s founder became major red flags as well. Streaming high-bitrate audio heavily relies on a solid network infrastructure. In rural areas, buffering, dropouts, or forced quality downgrades are common and particularly annoying when trying to enjoy background music while focused on a task. On top of that, streaming services require periodic subscription validation. Platforms like Spotify make their client software phone home regularly, to verify that the subscription is still active. If you’re offline for too long, for example during prolonged travel without connectivity (think sailing), your ability to play music might stop at any moment, despite having cached songs locally. Beyond these technical hurdles, privacy is a big concern. Every song you stream from an online service is logged, timestamped, and linked directly to your account, which, in turn, is liked to your PayPal or credit card, and hence your real identity. That data doesn’t just sit there. It can be sold to or enriched by data brokers, to build comprehensive psychographic profiles. Your listening habits can reveal your mood, emotional state, and even potential mental health fluctuations. It’s not far-fetched to imagine a world where insurers or employers purchase this data to make inferences about “mental stability” , sexual orientation or political alignment, and adjust rates or base hiring decisions on this. Streaming services are, in themselves, inherently privacy invasive and present a quietly dystopian future unfolding in the background. On top of that, there’s what I’d like to call subscription fatigue . You’re billed every month, regardless of how often you use the service or whether you’re stuck listening to the same songs over and over again. The recurring charge doesn’t go away, but unlike when buying music, you don’t actually own anything at the end of the day. To add insult to injury, those payments rarely benefit the artists you love and hope to support. Revenue in the streaming industry is a complex topic that could warrant an entire write-up on its own. The bottom line is, however, that unless you’re a megastar, you’re barely seeing any money from millions of listens, and you might find other income streams to be significantly more lucrative . “But without streaming services how do you discover new music that you like?” , you might ask. And yes, you’re right, streaming services introduced us to discovery playlists and algorithmic suggestions as a convenient way to find new music. However, personalized playlists have increasingly become a gateway for record labels to push their songs, regardless of what you want to hear. Many users report hearing the same new singles across Spotify despite different tastes, a sign of homogenized playlist algorithms and paid content. Academic studies support the theory that algorithms favor popular tracks, leading to lower diversity and promoting the same songs to all users, regardless of their unique preferences. This results in playlists that sound alike across different accounts, containing fewer and fewer truly personalized suggestions, and instead more promotional pieces. Hint: YouTube’s play next feature is fairly equal to most platforms' discovery queues. Simply listen to a song that you like and have YouTube continue playing similar content to discover titles that you might not have heard of. A troubling trend in the streaming world is the quiet surge of AI-generated music that is being pushed onto playlists, more often than not without any clear disclosure to the user. These tracks are optimized in terms of duration, emotionally vague tones, and melodies and are often designed to fit seamlessly into background playlists for “focus ”, “sleep” or other moods . These songs aren’t made by humans (in the classical sense), yet they appear under fabricated artist names and stock album covers, blending into your recommended mix as if they were legitimate indie releases. Streaming platforms benefit immensely from this technology, due to the lack of licensing fees and royalties. It’s a subtle but dangerous erosion of music as a form of human expression and it’s replacing artistry with algorithmically generated filler to keep the users listening and the services profiting. And worst of it all is that people are probably already listening to AI tracks without realizing it. For instance, the band Velvet Sundown , which amassed over a million streams on Spotify before being revealed as entirely AI-created , is emblematic of this trend. Platforms like Deezer report that roughly 18% of newly uploaded tracks are fully AI-generated, and up to 70% of their streams are fraudulent . These are only some of the technical and cultural issues that music streaming has brought us. Hence, for the past two years I’ve slowly returned to the roots of digital music consumption, that is storing my carefully curated library locally, ideally in a lossless, high-quality format (e.g. FLAC), and having my own streaming service by hosting the music on my trusty NAS (a.k.a. my Ultra‑Portable Data Center ). These days, my Jellyfin rocks a library of over 2,000 songs, that I can stream on every computer , phone , and tablet I own. With the music stored and served this way, there’s no third-party tracking, no usage analytics, and no opaque algorithms deciding what I hear. It works completely offline, anytime and anywhere, without worrying about internet outages or validation check-ins. Heck, even during power-outages I’m still able to keep my music playing, thanks to uninterruptible power supplies and laptop / phone batteries. Also, it’s a one-time investment that persists virtually until the end of time, meaning no endless subscription fees just to listen to the same songs. And with Jellyfin supporting remote control features, I’m able to connect to any device from any other and chose what it’ll play – without any internet uplink or proprietary protocols (e.g. AirPlay). Of course, this setup isn’t without its trade-offs. The lack of curated discovery with truly taste-based algorithmic recommendations means that I have to seek out new music on my own, which takes more time and intention. However, given the enshittification – a word so over-used that I’m truly starting to hate it – with most platforms’ recommendations, I don’t feel like I’m missing out here. If you’re considering the switch to Jellyfin be prepared to stumble upon a few things that you would think are absolute basic to any music player and platform, but are simply nowhere to be found in Jellyfin. Luckily, there are third-party clients for Jellyfin that implement at least some of those features. Also, there’s the self-hosting aspect: Running a Jellyfin server means handling updates, backups, and the occasional LAN hiccup – which more often than not is DNS – myself. Everything is manually synced, meaning that adding new albums or tracks requires me to upload them to the NAS and refresh the library, which, while not hard, does add friction compared to the instant gratification of streaming platforms. Note: I have documented how to set up Jellyfind in my post about the Ultra-Portable Data Center (part two). If you’re curious about how to set up your own Jellyfin instance go check it out! I recently picked up the iFi hip-dac3 , a compact USB DAC and headphone amp designed specifically for audiophiles. While I’m as far from being an audiophile as it gets, the device nevertheless solves a couple of issues that I had with Bluetooth connections. First of all, it connects easily to my phone via USB-C and handles high-res audio with support for PCM up to 384kHz. The sound, even with my modest current setup, is noticeably cleaner, fuller, and more detailed, especially in tracks with subtle instrumental layering. I haven’t yet paired it with a pair of serious audiophile headphones, so I’m not fully unlocking its potential just yet. But even now, the difference is striking and the build quality, portability, and battery life are top-notch. Hoarding gigabytes of FLACs has finally paid off, heh. Another benefit is that I don’t have to deal with Bluetooth issues, especially with lower-end headphones and Android devices. Periodic disconnects and audio glitches have been problems that I’ve experienced in the past, especially when trying to use LDAC. I also have a healthy distrust towards Bluetooth security in general, hence I use a wired keyboard for example. On top of that, I also don’t feel like blasting my head with Bluetooth for several hours on a day to day basis. Streaming may have convenience, but the real costs are hidden: Loss of privacy, weak artist compensation, algorithmic manipulation, and ongoing payments. By returning to locally stored files and a self‑hosted Jellyfin system, I’ve reclaimed control, quality, and peace of mind. Sure, I lose autoplay surprises, but I gain a music experience that’s truly mine and I experience new music more intentionally rather than as part of an endless consumption queue. P.S.: If you need more reasons to quit Spotify in particular, I invite you to perform a web search using the terms “Daniel Ek Prima Materia Helsing” . P.P.S.: Tidal is now majority-owned by Block, Inc. , a company helmed by a CEO whose results are more often than not outpaced by his ego, which, in turn, is only rivaled by the uncritical fervor of his die-hard crypto-lemmings.
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