When I was in my teens, I always bought albums. I had no other responsibility, so I sank my money into music. Albums were 5-7 dollars.
Today, though, with the addition of kiRAB, wife, bills, mortgage, etc, I simply can't go plunk down 20 bucks every week for music that may or may not be any good.
I use downloading as a tool, to see if I am willing to invest, legitimately, in an artist's work.
As an example, I'd always dabbled around with blues, but never really listened to it extensively, other than what I could catch on the college radio station. So, after hearing a few different artists, I would download some of their stuff, and burn it, and give it a test drive for a few weeks, see if it grew on me. I now own a ton of legitimate store bought blues cRAB that I enjoy, as opposed to owning maybe 1/2 dozen or so and quitting because I felt as though I'd been ripped off.