&gt; <i>Consumers don&#x27;t care, until some listicle website or advertising firm points out that Amazon&#x2F;Apple short you on your mp3s by not even offering 128kbps all the way through.</i><p>A 128kbps threshold is a holdover from the days of MP3s, WinAMP, ripping your CDs, and technically-savvy early adopter consumers. The <i>average consumer</i> is content to stream and doesn&#x27;t know or care about bitrate, and the phrase &quot;not even 128kbps&quot; would be meaningless most readers.