Why is “on hold” music/audio so bad?

> Why is on hold audio sound like a cassette tape?

Because a telephone voice channel is limited to a bandwidth of about 3100hz with a pass band of about 300hz to 3400hz (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_frequency). This is a compromise for reasonable voice transmission, but produces terrible music transmission.

> Are they trying to get rid of me?

The answer for some may be "yes", but that's not the technical reason for the poor music sound quality.

> Why is the music they play so dated?

Most likely guess: copyrights.

> Etrade on hold is the same music for the last, I don't know, 15 years.

Several reasons likely play into this:

1) once set, it is simply forgotten about because it is just working

2) the purpose of the music is not to entertain, but to assure the person on hold that the call has not terminated prematurely.

3) in part because of #1 and #2 the PM's and or those controlling the budget allocations don't see any reason to spend money 'fixing' something that in their mind is not broken.

I've been, even in recent times, on hold only to be stuck with staticky music. Not just low quality, but literally from what sounds like a half-tuned-in radio station.

In such cases, I am left to assume they want you to do your deeds online so they don't have to pay people to answer the phone and inevitably tell you to do your deeds online.