I don’t think I’ve ever chatted with someone before about computer-related stuff and been met with an open-mouthed look of utter astonishment.

What do you mean “You don’t use Spotify”?

they said.

“I thought you were a geek?”

We’d be chatting about software on phones, and they saw the Jellyfin icon on my phone’s home screen.

I explained my preference for buying and ripping CDs and other physical media, and DRM-free downloads, and for listening to Internet radio streams (I’m still very much enjoying RadioFreeFedi at the moment).

I might as well have said that I buy piano rolls, based on their reaction.

And it wasn’t a mean or sneering reaction, scoffing at my Luddite tastes, just a reaction of complete incomprehension.

How could I, someone who is not just friendly with computers but is Very Online, not use Spotify? Seemingly, it just didn’t add up.

To my interlocutor - a person of a similar age to me - it seems that “music” and “Spotify” are interchangeable terms.

They’re not going to listen to music. They’re going to listen to Spotify.

They know what a CD is, but (and here it was my turn to be bemused) they gave all their CDs away to charity some years back.

Now, if they want music, they use Spotify.

To them, the ability to pay a monthly fee and have temporary access to a load of music was a great deal. So good, that they got rid of their physical media.

And… to each, their own.

That’s not an approach which holds any appeal to me. I don’t want to be tied into a monthly subscription for music. But we all value different things.

I think that, at the point they realised that it wasn’t just Spotify, and that I don’t use any commercial music streaming subscription service, I probably did go down in their estimation.

And I can live with that.

I’m not preach-y when it comes to computer stuff, and by the same token, I’m quite comfortable with my own choices.

I use Linux, and self-host stuff, and like physical media, because it works for me. Right now, anyway; perhaps that will change in the future? Never say never, I guess.

But for now?

If I want music, I’ll stick with my CDs and DRM-free downloads, thanks.

I suspect that, had we discussed how I prefer to run and use my own stuff, and that my blog is a series of text files served over the Internet from our garage, it might have been met with similar disbelief.

Some people, it seems - for reasons likely entirely valid to them - prefer relying on other people’s stuff, or have no real choice but to do so. ‘Self-host it’ is not the answer for everyone.

I’m probably an outlier here.

Perhaps everyone else in my small Internet bubble of Linux-using, self-hosting, archive-it-locally-because-who-knows-when-it-will-be-removed-from-source, community is too.

And that’s fine.