Just FYI, Apple Music supports automatic iCloud syncing of your personal music files that you drag into your library. Most of what I listen to is on streaming, but I can have non-streaming music, bootlegs, vinyl rips, Bandcamp purchases, and music only available on SoundCloud or YouTube (via yt-dlp) seamlessly alongside the streaming stuff.
I’ve tried to explain how limiting any other streaming service is to friends, but I’ve mostly been met with blank stares at the mere concept of wanting to listen to off-streaming music or even where one would come across actual music files these days.
That's pretty cool, especially as my collection has a bunch of 90s-00s goth and indie bits and pieces which just aren't present on the streaming services.
This was something google play music was supposed to do as well, though that's dead now!
Yeah, I’m big into ‘90s UK hardcore where a lot of the classics were only released on some cassette or vinyl at a show back then so being able to include the obscure stuff I’ve procured is a hard requirement for me.
It makes sense that Google Play Music offered this, as it seems like adding a whole cloud-storage stack would be prohibitively complex and expensive for a company that isn’t running their own datacenters and/or already maintaining cloud storage as part of their business. Spotify supports local files and (apparently) lets you sync them iPod-style to your phone, but that’s where I draw the line in terms of music-collection-anachronism.
Random note: you do have to convert FLAC to ALAC if you want to add lossless files to Apple Music, but that’s an easy ffmpeg one-liner.
I’ve tried to explain how limiting any other streaming service is to friends, but I’ve mostly been met with blank stares at the mere concept of wanting to listen to off-streaming music or even where one would come across actual music files these days.