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How streaming music could be harming the planet
Once vinyl or a CD is purchased, it can be played over and over again, the only carbon cost coming from running the record player. However, if we listen to our streamed music using a hi-fi sound system it's estimated to use 107 kilowatt hours of electricity a year, costing about £15.00 to run. A CD player uses 34.7 kilowatt hours a year and costs £5 to run.
Solution: Use a smartphone or laptop with headphones unless you are playing music for guests. Download the songs you play repeatedly.
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Environmental Impact of Music Streaming?
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Confess your sins to the Lord and you will be forgiven;
confess them to man and you will be laughed at.
-- Josh Billings
(Score: 4, Interesting) by pipedwho on Monday February 18 2019, @10:16PM
With any torrent, assuming everyone that wants a copy runs to completion, the number of downloads equals the number of uploads. So the carbon cost of a torrent is equivalent to each client downloading the file exactly once. (Ignoring a small percent of lost packets, users aborting the download half way and starting again, etc).
But, as the sibling poster mentioned, 'local' copies are not just to save energy, but to allow perpetual access if the streaming site 'goes offline', or decides to take _you_ offline with some DRM revocation or just by locking you out. No network, no access, no streaming music. Versus no network, no access, still happily playing and backing up my music collection.
I find I listen to the same songs a lot more than once, and it makes sense to buy an album (either physical or online) and keep it around than pay in-perpetuity to listen to the material.