One of many first decisions when recording music: which bitrate to use?

When the recording software turns everything into an MP3 file for distribution on the web and MP3 players, how much of the information should be thrown away in order to save space?

Today, 192 kbps is considered a pretty good encoding rate, but since this is my very own music, I'd definitely like to convey more clarity, maybe at 256 kbps. But then, if I stream the MP3 from my website, will the streaming stil work for visitors when a 3:30 song is twice the size? How will that affect the bandwith limit of my web provider?

In general, most people couldn't tell the difference between 192 and 256 kbps, but audiophiles (and sometimes those are the most avid listeners) often can. Also, since disk space and streaming speed becomes less of  a bottleneck each year, I decide to go for 256 kbps...