No, store it on your computer/phone/iPod. But honestly data centers are probably very efficient for this. I'm not going to do the math, but storing data on flash and serving it to billions of people probably is efficient if I had to guess.
I would like to see a full cost comparison. Centralised storage - replicated, distributed and maintained online as necessary - vs media that, once manufactured and distributed, essentially costs nothing to maintain. iPods/phones get replaced much more frequently than LPs/casettes/CDs. And that’s just the resource consumption comparison. There’s then the economic polarisation of wealth to the small handful of online music renters vs distributed ownership (of copies: the original work of art remains with the artist, at least in theory).
I would like to see a full cost comparison. Centralised storage - replicated, distributed and maintained online as necessary - vs media that, once manufactured and distributed, essentially costs nothing to maintain. iPods/phones get replaced much more frequently than LPs/casettes/CDs. And that’s just the resource consumption comparison. There’s then the economic polarisation of wealth to the small handful of online music renters vs distributed ownership (of copies: the original work of art remains with the artist, at least in theory).