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I do still buy music and other media. But I've always purchased more physical media than my acquaintances, perhaps with the exception of one of my close friends who also has a huge library of books, movies, and music.
I've pivoted to again buying more classical music than other genres -- mainly because current scores don't interest me in general. I still purchase soundtracks, of course, just not as many as in in the past since I now have a fairly substantial collection by composers I love and admire. I’m focusing these days on getting SACDs of new and favorite classical works.
I love streaming options, too. And downloads – mainly pop/rock. Psychologically, those do seem a part of my library despite not having “physicality.” Recently I subscribed to the online DC Universe, and I'm loving the availability within seconds and a few clicks of amazingly vibrant and pristine versions of my favorite comic books – and no physical storage hassles. I'm able to explore new comics without worrying about purchasing stuff that I’ll end up hating.
My Kindle has hundreds of books, and my Galaxy phone also has hundreds of albums (it has 1 TB storage and is only 1 year old so I did manage to find a phone that offered tons of storage).
So “buying”, in all of its connotations, is still a thing for me.
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I'm a bit surprised people still enjoy CDs in their car, because that's where the physical aspect of discs seems to be at its most disturbing. My wife was worried when she bought a new car that it didn't have a CD player anymore, now she will never go back. My car still has a CD player, but I never use it.
I have currently about 400 albums I'm my car I can easily access via the mounted display, just a few fingertips, (the music is on an inserted USB stick).
I seldom used CDs in the car before though, I was always worried about scratches or the heat, so I used to make CDRs for car listening back in the day.
It is true that it requires a bit of care to keep the CD from being damaged but for me that is part of the process of enjoying the physical media--being conscious of the physicality of the product. Plus my commute is one of the few times during my day when I can crank the music and really listen to it and exist in my own little world, plus I have a really quality CD player in my car and good speakers and the ambient road noise is minimal. Unfortunately, the car is not equipped with the touch screen features that have become standard in the last ten years so fidgeting with menus while I drive is not an option for me.
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Well I’m pretty darn curious but I’m 36 so I guess I fall just outside your range. 
Yavar
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Well, if the average age here is around 40+ (we don't have a statistic) there's bound to be here one or the other who's 36 or younger. 
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Aside from a bit of "try before you buy" or when given recommendations with a Spotify link, I'm not really into streaming, but am quite happy buying music digitally. While it's nice having a beautifully packaged special edition, with the increases in shipping and costs generally, I am increasingly contemplating waiting for them to come out digitally (the range of digital releases from Intrada, LLL and Varese is expanding rapidly). It also makes a difference that most of my grail releases have come out; as for many of is, think I'm more or less down to Star Wars and Indy at this stage, so a digital release is fine by me but will get a CD if that's all there is.
My main bugbear with downloads is that soundtracks (especially in lossless) are still pretty pricey whether they are new releases or limited editions. I would mind less but I buy an awful lot of classical music and the price of that when buying in lossless rarely breaks £10 and is often a lot less (under a fiver for Naxos). Given the endless predictions of the "death of classical music", the number of new classical albums that comes out is incredible and I can't imagine many of them are bought in significantly higher numbers than the average soundtrack (no, I don't have any figures, but both are niche markets and soundtracks have the film or TV show to advertise them). Perhaps I'm missing something but one would expect a classical album to be priced much more aggressively given that it has to cover all of its costs in a way a (new) soundtrack doesn't. Digital soundtrack albums almost never come with a PDF of the liner notes, the classical labels provide top notch materials with their digital releases.
I do find it amusing/annoying that Film Score Friday still only lists "CD releases" for the week and not all soundtrack releases. This strikes me as very disingenuous, if not actively unhelpful for people who use the weekly column as a resource on new releases and re-releases.
Tom. Age 40... something.
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My main bugbear with downloads is that soundtracks (especially in lossless) are still pretty pricey whether they are new releases or limited editions. I would mind less but I buy an awful lot of classical music and the price of that when buying in lossless rarely breaks £10 and is often a lot less (under a fiver for Naxos). Given the endless predictions of the "death of classical music", the number of new classical albums that comes out is incredible and I can't imagine many of them are bought in significantly higher numbers than the average soundtrack (no, I don't have any figures, but both are niche markets and soundtracks have the film or TV show to advertise them). Perhaps I'm missing something but one would expect a classical album to be priced much more aggressively given that it has to cover all of its costs in a way a (new) soundtrack doesn't. Digital soundtrack albums almost never come with a PDF of the liner notes, the classical labels provide top notch materials with their digital releases.
The thing is that classical recordings are often subsidized by cultural arts departments, patrons, societies, etc.; also, most new classical recordings tend to be done parallel with concerts, many even are live recordings. So the classical recording itself is not necessarily making any money. Also, many new classical recordings tend to be more expensive, but classical labels such as Naxos, Deutsche Grammophon, Warner etc. tend to have a huge back catalog of recordings they can put out for whatever they wish.
As far as prices go, I think sometimes CDs, sometimes downloads are better. For example, I recently picked up Intrada's EXTREME PREJUDICE as a digital download (lossless/high-res) on Qobuz for €7.49; that's a lot less than just even shipping and handling normally costs.
I mostly listen to music from my own collection, but currently find it fantastic to explore a lot of music via streaming. I mean, I got enough sets of Beethoven Symphonies... but thanks to streaming I can listen to all the others. I recently ploughed threw various recordings of a Bach Harpsichord concerto, one of them I eventually purchased (as a digital download). I dislike the inconsistent way classical music tends to be tagged on streaming services (and I usually immediately re-tag them when buying downloads), it makes no sense and makes sometimes finding something quite tricky. My own collection is consequently tagged, so it's easy to navigate. Nevertheless, it's just amazing the wealth of music you have access to in top notch sound quality for less than 20 bucks a month.
Still, I would never want to part with my grown and curated music collection, and I still buy music, both on CD or as download, depending on what makes more sense. Also, as those are mine, I can easily transfer them to my car or to my wife's car. So I'm definitely in the "I still buy music" category myself... but I'm afraid I'm over 29.
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I may be wrong but if young people already don't buy anymore a current physical soundtrack or other music CD in favor of a download or a streaming, how could they ever consider buying a Silver Age old score from an unknown movie or composer?
And that's perhaps at the core of why I initiated this thread: discovery.
You said you started with Goldsmith, Williams, and Horner, you then soon discovered Miklós Rósza, Alex North, Bernard Herrmann or Elmer Bernstein... so that's not much unlike me, and perhaps a lot of others here.
But how did we discover Rózsa or Herrmann? Browsing in record stores? Noticing the music in older movies? Reading liner notes on LPs? Fanzines?
Today, it's algorithms, and they tend to present you music that's very much like the music you already like. Also, when I was a teenager buying records, each and every record was a lot of money for me. I had to be selective when I bought something... and then I had to play it, because that was it. There was not just a chance but also the need to let music grow on you, until you actually "unlocked" its beauty.
With today's streaming, it's easy if one does not like something right away to just skip it and go to the next album.
So ironically, while streaming enables anyone to listen to such a vast amount of genres and albums, it still creates "bubbles", and you have to actively "want" to try out different things or music you may not like right away.
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For those worried about storage, a Network Attached Storage (NAS) is your answer. I have approaching 10,000 albums in lossless and my 8TB NAS is only 53% full (oh my entire photo collection is in there too and some blu-rays ripped for my 3 year old)
It auto backs up to a second (mirrored) drive and to the cloud for $20 a month.
Get a NAS and a Cambridge CXNv2 and you're sorted for playing hi-res music through hi-fi speakers alongide your CDs.
I fully agree with you that a NAS and a hifi streamer are the way to go when listening to music, by far the biggest advance in home music listening since upgrading from LP to CD. My hi-fi system can still play CDs, though I have not actually played a CD anymore in years (other than for testing something).
I have my fairly simple NAS for a while and wanted to update it already a couple of years ago, but it still holds thousands of albums and has room for several times as many.
Also, with such a combo you can easily navigate your entire CD collection not just from your home hi-fi setup, but from everywhere. I can access my NAS from anywhere with my smartphone.
However, it takes some time to rip and tag a CD collection, and I guess some people shy away from investing the time and money it would take to get such a system running.
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So ironically, while streaming enables anyone to listen to such a vast amount of genres and albums, it still creates "bubbles", and you have to actively "want" to try out different things or music you may not like right away.
This is certainly true. And I don't disagree with any of your main points. But I think we tend to overestimate how many people got out of their bubbles when purchasing was the only option to explore past what was available broadly, like on the radio.
Three anecdotes.
When I was working in a bookstore after high school, I learned that the bread and butter of sales was romance novels, not new releases, not best sellers, romance novels.
Once in a Classical record store, when I plunked down some CDs of 20th C composers, the haughty clerk said, "finally, someone who buys something besides Pachelbel's Canon!"
And even here I've been a little surprised at the narrow taste of a lot of my film score peeps. Given the predilection for trad orchestral scoring.
One thing I've always loved about soundtracks is that they can expose you to lots of different kinds of music. I have eclectic taste, and was first exposed to lots of different stuff, from electronic music and gamelan to Bartok and Penderecki.
But from my experience here I've found I'm in the minority. My taste overlaps with just about everybody I've encountered here, but often see different groups when talking about different kinds of music.
There is nothing wrong with this. People should love what they love, and if other kinds of music don't feed you, then don't waste time with it. But we have to be careful thinking that current trends like streaming will narrow taste. Taste is usually narrow for most people however they encounter content.
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)
