I've got some years (of life) that might be called wisdom (or insanity, depending on who passes judgement).
Here's my best take...
Owning > Renting unless you are young and have nothing with which to start and little money to actually buy a good starter collection... which is basically the same proposition of buying a home vs. renting one... or buying a car vs. leasing one, etc.
If one gets on the "own" train, they eventually accumulate a good amount of their favorite music. Over a few decades, I've piled up about 15,000 songs, carefully made about 20 playlists of "favorites" and those playlists contain about 4K songs in total (about 26% of the library). Most of those get synched to my mobile devices so I don't pay forever rent for cloud storage either. I find that it takes only a few thousand favorite songs to never get that "stale" feeling via shuffling. So I am not regularly accumulating a lot of new ones- just enjoying the ones already owned. When I do hear a new one that I like (often via the free Pandora or also free Sonos Music stations), I'll seek it out and add it to the collection.
Where does new music come from vs. the cheap "rent for access to all" option? Holiday & birthday gift CDs are an easy way to add new without spending a nickel. An up to $20 gift is easy for just about anyone to give. The used CD market is robust and greatest hits collections at only a few dollars can add 10-20 best songs in one cheap buy. Occasional free music promotions for buying something else can also add new music. Etc.
4,000 favorites divided by- say- 20 "greatest hits" CDs = only 200 CDs. If given about 50 of them for free, that leaves 150 to buy. At typical used prices, that can be about $4 each. So that's $600. Now maybe one doesn't get everything they want from loaded (20 song) "greatest hits" collections, so they might buy another 100s CDs or similar... but round it up to maybe $1,000 or so and it's still not that many months until forever rent exceeds $1000. Example: while I know promotions make pricing vary, rounding to- say- about $10/month means $1000/10 = 100 months. That's only 8.4 years before renting becomes more expensive than buying IF the rent stays the same for the next 8 years (good luck with that.)
The youngster just getting going in adulthood probably has Mommy & Daddy's entire music collection already on hand... and those parents likely had to BUY most of their collection on disc. Friends share CDs. Relationships sometimes swap CDs or merge whole libraries that then persist when relationships end. The local library(s). Siblings. Etc. In other words, quite a big bank of great music can get the youngster off to a fairly loaded library start before they need to spend a nickel. If that gets them- say- half of the songs in their 300 CDs equivalent, they are probably accumulating another 150 CDs at about that $600 (if they want).
Once someone has a few thousand favorites, there's always something good to enjoy. And if they want a dash of "new", Pandora/Sonos/YouTube or even radio is always available to explore brand new for $0.
To try to absolutely rationalize forever rent, one usually has to play the extreme games... as if every CD is going to cost $20+ out of pocket and offer up examples of the most expensive box sets, etc... while ignoring the parent's probably very large collection, the used market, the library, relationship accumulations, etc. To me though, that's like rationalizing forever renting a home based upon some "expensive repair" they don't worry about (but will pay for in rent hikes) or property taxes they don't have to pay (but do pay because it's built into the rent), etc.
At some point, one has
enough music and can turn off any new spend and enjoy what they have. And that brings us to the most important part:
all of it doesn't immediately evaporate if the owner decides to pinch off that bit of their spending. Again, that's the same with renting a home or car too. If you decide to stop paying, you are homeless or car-less... unlike the owner who- after they own it- does not have to continue to pay to keep enjoying it.
Is there ANY argument for renting? Of course! Different situations can make it justifiable even over a long period of time. But in the broadest strokes for probably most people, owning is probably the better way to go. Some kind of world in which we rent/subscribe for all of the basics is a world where those providing such services ultimately accumulate all of the wealth and those renting/subscribing to everything one day find their cupboard (they don't even own) is bare. The "everything" proposition is enticing but just as easily fleeting when one turns off the money flow stream by choice... or by no choice.
