Isn't that just cognitive dissonance where you know there's no meaningful ethical choice to make but you still want to feel like you've made one?

Maybe, but what would you do? Just stop listening to music?

I load up my ext HD/phone SD card through YouTube. If I hear a tune I like, I take a pic of it. Later down the road I'll go back through my phone and DL all the tunes I snapped pics of through YT and an online DL'er. I don't think I've ever come across something that wasn't available, and it's a process that works for me.

Years ago, some things weren't available like anything by Prince, but these days it's all wide open for the most part. I remember being on Napster when there were only a few hundred people. That was tough sifting through all the BS. Then, it all exploded.

https://i.imgur.com/0G3aCJ2.gif?noredirect

If you really want to counter corporate power then join DSA or something I dunno. But spending all your mental energy on pointless individual acts of disorganized protest is a waste. By all means don't pay Spotify $10 a month if you don't want to but this isn't a thing.

There is no ethical consumption under capitalism but you can pick less sh*tty options, this isn't hard to understand.

I agree. I don't want to give Bezos another cent, which is why I asked.
There is a moral alternative. You can choose a platform that doesn't make you want to puke at the corporate scum running it. So Amazon and Spotify, both out; neither are getting my money.
Means nothing in the grand scheme of things but it does to me. I'll sleep a little easier knowing that ****er's evil hands are nowhere near my Paypal account. If you adopt that attitude why do anything? Nothing you do will make any real difference, other than burning down buildings (hi, Varg!) or hacking into Spotify and robbing all their profits, or replacing Rogan with a deepfake that gives him tits or orange hair or something. You do what you can live with, that's all you can do.

All I can say is good luck with that.

I just listen to everything on Youtube with an adblocker. If I like what I hear, I buy the stuff (on vinyl usually, through various websites, sometimes independent record shops, sometimes the artist's bandcamp, and yes, sometimes Amazon). Youtube has basically everything I could want (besides Jay-Z's discography, who is militant about disallowing it - but I own all his stuff on CD anyway)

YouTube's recommendation algorithm is broken in a lot of ways but one of the few good things about it is that it has exposed a lot of people to music they never would have been known about otherwise.

It doesn't quite make up for all of the right wing radicalization that is bringing society closer to fascism but hey at least I discovered city pop, thanks YouTube.

YouTube has its place but I couldn’t listen to all of my music from there. It would drive me round the bend.

I’m interested to see what other suggestions come through. I didn’t really like Apple Music or Amazon music when I’ve used them in the past.