I also think no format will be prevalent forever. If anyone is against MQA, I would say they are just a “current thing”. Even if MQA disappears today, there will be “another thing” down the road.
That's just the thing though. We're at the point where a FLAC is the same quality as the master. That's the endgame, the "Crown Jewels", as good as it can get.
FLAC is open so you'll always be able to convert it to whatever you want. If you get an MQA then you're forever stuck with MQA, so when MQA is long gone and your MQA DAC dies, you're SOL and have to buy everything again.
Why would you want to take that risk when there's a free option, and the free option even has better sound quality than MQA?
the bestest version of Nirvana’s Nevermind to me was the one I dubbed in my TDK metal cassette from the original back when I was 17.
About this... personally I've been
blown away many times hearing the music from my youth on a good system/headphones from lossless. Some of those songs just sound better than I ever imagined.
I'm so happy to have the equipment we've got now for affordable prices, and even amazing quality from headphones attached to your phone with thousands of songs on it, not to mention an always-on internet connection wherever you go to hear whatever you want!
We've never been luckier as music lovers!!
It's lovely to have such first-world problems as arguing about a couple of dB of noise on a digital file, although it is irritating the way companies always try to ruin the fun in order to extract maximum money from old music. If they would be creative and foster new artists, the money will never run out!