That's a false dichotomy. Bandcamp will sell me music I can download _and_ let me stream it.
But separately, I don't want stewardship for my data to rest with whoever I transact with to acquire that data. Why not a digital locker standard, where you sign in with your digital locker when purchasing digital content, and that content is saved to your locker, with whatever metadata? You can then search and play your purchased content through whatever client you like, regardless of where you got it from. You can sort of do that today (to the extent that you can still purchase digital content--there's music that's available to stream that I have not been able to find for purchase) with files, but you lose the stewardship and it's a lot of work.
You can argue that the subscription model pays for the stewardship in a way purchases would not, but surely digital content is easier to work with than CDs and DVDs.
I think most consumers don't really care, though, and I'm guessing content platforms don't really see the point of supporting something like that.
But separately, I don't want stewardship for my data to rest with whoever I transact with to acquire that data. Why not a digital locker standard, where you sign in with your digital locker when purchasing digital content, and that content is saved to your locker, with whatever metadata? You can then search and play your purchased content through whatever client you like, regardless of where you got it from. You can sort of do that today (to the extent that you can still purchase digital content--there's music that's available to stream that I have not been able to find for purchase) with files, but you lose the stewardship and it's a lot of work.
You can argue that the subscription model pays for the stewardship in a way purchases would not, but surely digital content is easier to work with than CDs and DVDs.
I think most consumers don't really care, though, and I'm guessing content platforms don't really see the point of supporting something like that.