>

Literally where I get all of my music from.
Old Man Shouts at Cloud - More at 6 >

Spotify is easier than pirating >

and they're both ripping off the artists! >

Yeah it’s horrible the way Spotify forces artists at gunpoint into doing business with them. >

It kind of does, in a sense. Most people use Spotify to listen to their music, they lose exposure AND royalties (albeit less than deserved) when not letting people listen to their music on Spotify.
Not to mention their fanbase may get upset with the artist for not using Spotify since their music won’t be easily accessible. >

Downsides:

Separate device, with all that entails
Harder to find reliable models
Can be expensive for more features (FLAC, Bluetooth)
Not as common to rip CDs nowadays 
Sometimes hard to find music files if you don't use slsk
Usually wired transfer only
ID3 TAGS ARE FUCKING AWFUL

I have two music files players. >

With a phone you're better off, lemme tell you why.
Piracy (by ripping the audio off some YT vid, done by sites that I won't name)
All that 128 GB or 256 GB storage and I can easily store 1000s of High quality (256Kbps) songs, if not tens of thousands.
No transfer when you can straight up download it off the internet
Or if you feel piracy is morally corrupt, use a hacked version of YouTube. It allows you to listen with the screen off, and you're not ripping artists off too.
Phones support most codecs, aac, ogg, wav(?), flac, mp3 (obviously).
Videos can be run offline too, such as movies, in their original mkv format.
iPhones and iPads alike can have music loaded by iTunes, and you can definitely acquire music files from your PC.  
All this, and you ask for upsides? Well if weight is your concern, go get an iPod touch 7 / last gen iPod classic >

MP3 players?... I think you mean a phone with an SD card. >

Streaming services come complete with a music library.  Spotify allows you to download local copies of the music and use it just like an MP3 player, which is great when using on airplanes.
Using an MP3 player requires you to source your music on your own. >

as someone who really likes music, i like sourcing my own music. i don't like letting some computer that is weaponized for profits sourcing my music for me. >

Spotify will let you create your own playlists all day and all night long too. >

that's not the same as organizing and categorizing my music that i purchased and own forever and ever >


own forever and ever

Well there you go, you found one benefit. >

It's 2023, we use FLAC now >

where to even get mp3s nowadays? last time i tried to get mp3s i had to go to some russian forum blog and download from russian file server sites >

youtube mp3 converter