Well I'm almost 50 and ripped my first (shit quality) 64kbps mp3 somewhere around 1998 or earlier. But I switched to a library view and stopped individually managing folders when iTunes first appeared (24 years ago?). I just concentrated on proper tagging, including mood and instrument. I spent that more time ripping CDs and using tag editors than worrying which folder they were in (but that took care of itself with good tags). With a library you can still play an album, or a whole artist catalog, but also a whole genre, a mood, all you top rated music, or an automatic playlist that plays your least recently played, or least played but highly rated music from a mood, instrument, genre etc etc.
These days I use musicbee which has extremely customizable views, so you can browse your music however you want. My wife tends to pick a specific album, whereas I tend to be in a specific music mood so I hunt around for tracks and make a two hour playlist for it. She'd be happy with folders probably but it would kill me not to be able to search for instruments and moods. How else are you going to get a trumpet and piano playlist? Remember every song name?
I know it's crazy, but yes! Nothing drives me crazier than seeing an actor and trying to remember where I saw him/her in before, and hearing a song I know but don't know the name.
I use Shazam liberally but it's pretty bad at the non mainstream stuff. I end up finding it with searches and screenshotting it for my reference.
Not that you asked any of this, but I -have- to know the name of a song I like.
These days I use musicbee which has extremely customizable views, so you can browse your music however you want. My wife tends to pick a specific album, whereas I tend to be in a specific music mood so I hunt around for tracks and make a two hour playlist for it. She'd be happy with folders probably but it would kill me not to be able to search for instruments and moods. How else are you going to get a trumpet and piano playlist? Remember every song name?