That wasn't the MPEG design goal. It was to stream video through a distribution network where dropouts would be tolerated as part of doing business. People were accustomed to snowy analog broadcast video. That is more disruptive when listening to purely audio. This is incidentally why CDs had their error handling significantly improved over Phillips' original prototype which would have been much more susceptible to scratches if commercialized.
‘Worse is better’ in effect. MP3 trades quality for convenience.
Edit: I read above that these particular MP3s are corrupted, so they have a serious enjoyability issue.
That's the point. CDs have error correction to handle corruption. MP3 has nothing. A complete downgrade in robustness.
With an advantage in compactness that makes them easier to distribute. That trade off is their point.
That wasn't the MPEG design goal. It was to stream video through a distribution network where dropouts would be tolerated as part of doing business. People were accustomed to snowy analog broadcast video. That is more disruptive when listening to purely audio. This is incidentally why CDs had their error handling significantly improved over Phillips' original prototype which would have been much more susceptible to scratches if commercialized.