How can you listen to music without streaming services?

- MP3 players : very famous format, you can find MP3s literally anywhere, you can have one with or without bluetooth. mine has bluetooth though the quality is shitty. its an agptek from 2012. you have to download music and transfer it via an USB cable, here are some services to download music : https://spotidownloader.com/fr for spotify (you can even download whole albums or playlists, isnt that so awesome) ; https://www-y2mate.com/fr20/ for youtube, you sadly cant download playlists, and the site that were downloading playlists got taken down (y2down) ; and for other platforms i havent found any yet, sorry! i primarily use spotify and youtube

- portable CD players (discman) : honestly, they are so cool, i have one from my grandpa and its just so awesome when i wanna listen to whole CD albums, or when i dont have my phone with me. you can find a bunch for cheap on 2nd hand websites, especially vinted, found a few under 20 bucks - though BE CAREFUL because they are very fragile devices, if you want to buy a 2nd hand one, make sure to preferably buy a famous and viable brand (such as sony, phillips, amstrad, grundig, ect) and ESPECIALLY ask the seller if its in good condition etc. also check if it has shock protection and a lock option its important

- walkman : okay walkman are indeed amazing to listen to cassettes, im not owning one yet, but i plan to for christmas since mine is broken. you can find a few in 2nd hand though check if its in good condition because most of 2nd hand walkman players have defaults, they are very fragile

- burning CDs or cassettes : i regularly burn CDs though i cant burn cassettes, so i cant explain how its gonna work, sorry. but for CDs preferably use windows media player OR cdXPburner (the one i use) to burn your CDs! preferably burn on CD-R instead of CD-RW, because a lot of CD players cant read CD-RW. use a windows to burn your CDs bc my mac fucking damaged my CD-R 2 times lol

- an old phone : you can use an old small phone as a MP3, works pretty well! i used to have an old samsung from 2008 as a MP3. works the same as a MP3, just connect it to your PC and transfer the songs

- hacked streaming platforms : if you dont want any of that/cant afford anything but dont wanna pay for music streaming services, you can always download a premium hacked version of your music streaming service JUST MAKE SURE that the file is safe with virus total or other services! you can also go on reddit to see which safe sites hold pirated premium versions of an app. i know a pirated youtube music which is outertune, on github, its safe and has regular updates. avoid the pirate bay as there are a LOT of malware and its collaborations with suspicious services (ex : bit torrent ect). do NOT forget to navigate the internet with an adblock and tracker blocker (for example ublock origin or adguard). i have an apk of spotify premium, you can hit me an IM if you wish to get it!

note : i only support piracy when its done safely, wisely, and for a good reason. if you encounter a small business, rather support them! unlike big greedy companies... you can buy music once from small groups on bandcamp or directly buy their merch physically

dont forget to ask for your family members or such, check in your garages ect, because you might find cool old tech :) if you have any other music media you can mention it in the comments!

remember that if you cant touch it, you dont own it! keep in mind that if you pay for streaming services monthly, none of the content is yours, and becomes unaccessible when unpaid. i am not anti streaming as a whole since some streaming services could be good for some reasons and it could be cheaper if youre a huge consumer, but i personally prefer physical media 100% and i think its money-wiser. i dont have to pay monthly subscriptions and lose it if i stop paying, its infinitely usable.

edit (8/7/25) : thanks everyone for proposing other alternatives in the comments! i discovered other ways.