This was a real issue back when we had to buy full albums (cassettes) back in the eighties.
Sure, we look back to some epic albums from that time, but a whole lot of them were the one top forty hit and a bunch of crap filler songs. But we had to suffer through it because we'd spent eight dollars of our hard earned money on that crap. (Eight dollars back then would be over twenty dollars in today money)
It was groundbreaking when the CD listening stations came to record stores.
All this said, I love listening to full albums and was one of THOSE guys back in the nineties who would seek out things like Japanese releases that had ever so slightly different versions of songs.