Experts have been saying that MP3 is on its last legs for years. And yet, MP3 remains the de-facto standard when it comes to music files format. Even with the advent of higher-quality encodings such as AAC and FLAC, people still run to MP3 when they want to download their favorite songs.
Will MP3 Prevail?
Very likely, yes. People who enjoy listening to music are mostly not die-hard audiophiles. They’re perfectly content with a lossy compression as long as it has good enough bitrate. For the average Joe and Jane a song encoded as 320 kbps MP3 sounds as good as a FLAC. When the majority of the populace resist change or deem that a change is unnecessary, status quo is what you get.
“Is that a bad thing?”
Not at all. There’s no need for the consumer to rush moving to the next big thing. There’s no real incentive for them to do so.
“But music streaming services are getting better, right?”
Yes, they do. Apple Music, Spotify, and tons of their clones will grow bigger and better in the future. Their user base will grow millions more while the number of people who purchase MP3s and MP3 players will decrease.
That said, there will always be people who prefer to listen to their music library offline. People enjoy having different options. As a proof, converters from Apple Music and Spotify to MP3 are still popular. Believe it or not, there are folks who enjoy tinkering with their 1000+ music files.
Downloading MP3s also gives people the sense of owning the music. With streaming services, you just rent them.
“So, is there any truth in saying that MP3 is close to its end of life now?”
Maybe not. MP3 is still going to be around at least another decade. By then, the so-called experts will repeat themselves once again.
“Then there’s no need to change my MP3 library yet, right?”
You’re free to do as you please. If you wish to have the highest quality audio files, you can start ripping your music CD collections and then save them in a lossless format like FLAC. After all, it’s easy to convert the FLAC files to other audio file formats like MP3, AAC, OGG, etc. The online music converter tool makes it simple for everyone to do just that.
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