The cassettes sounded awful on day one, and rest assured they didn't get better with age. (Neither did the capstan in your cassette deck, which I'd suggest checking to make sure it isn't turning into goop that will literally ruin your tapes for good.)
Meanwhile, my CD-Rs are still fine, but then I didn't buy the cheapest ones I could find.
Out of all the 80s artifacts that hipsters could resurrect... wow, just wow. Cassettes. They could have brought back designer jeans, off-the-shoulder blouses, normally-aspirated V12 Ferraris, and cheap cocaine... but no, they decided to rehabilitate cassette tapes. This truly is the worst timeline.
You are aware that there are people who like the sound of tape noise and the saturation comes with it?
As a medium it also one of the few that gives listeners a high incentive to not skip songs.
These are valid artistic choices, just like you know guitarist who run their guitar through amplifiers that distort. On persons "mistake" can be another persons goal.
Also: if the thing includes a download code to a lossless flac, why would someone even consider to buy a CD? So they can listen to the exactly same thing, but with worse ergonomics? With the casette you get at least a different variant of the thing.
I wouldn't use it myself if I made classical or choir music, but that is not what I do.
> These are valid artistic choices, just like you know guitarist who run their guitar through amplifiers that distort. On persons "mistake" can be another persons goal.
Sure, if that’s what you want to do, do it and the record it on a better medium.
I have a box full of unreadable CDRs from 20 years ago and a box full of perfectly playable cassettes from 40 years ago.