3) Music is both an immersive and a companionable experience
We like to have music on while we [insert verb]. It’s a secondary and companionable experience that accompanies our daily lives.
Radio’s quite good for that, as is streaming.
When it’s on in the background, we’re not too fussed about quality. It’s uninterrupted ease of continual service that we’re after.
But we also like to sit down with the headphones on or the speakers up loud (I argue that there is no music that cannot be improved with the addition of volume). While not everyone has the ears of a record producer, quality counts. We like to be immersed in our music, enveloped in it and transported — whether it’s hard rock or big band jazz, country or synth pop. The quality has to be good — on all fronts.
There are people who listen to music out of the speaker of their mobile phones, and there are people who bought SACD players — and everything in between.
Don’t get dragged into arguments about acceptable quality and preferable formats. Make sure you cater for convenience AND quality. Neither refuse to make your music available as a ‘degraded’ mp3 nor neglect to offer it at 320kbps or as a WAV file.