I opened Spotify this morning to be greeted by a modal popup with a “sponsored recommendation”.
Why am I seeing ads if I’m already paying for the premium plan!? 😑
Apple Music pays musicians, Qobuz pays the best and costs the most
They both sound really good. If you have the money and are willing to compromise on a few things than Qobuz is the nice one
There’s also Tidal. Which pays well but is a buggy mess
I’ve been on Tidal for over a year with barely any bugs. Highly recommend!
Apple also rolled out a really good seaparate app specifically for browsing and listening to classical music.
Classical music doesn’t organize easily into “bands/albums” the way most works from the last 80 years do. Most music players tend to fall apart when you try to organize a library of classical music in any coherent manner. So they solved this problem by desiging a completely separate UI for it.
That’s pretty cool. Shame it’s iOS only.
It’s on Android as well
Oh cool, thank you. Turns out the device I was on was too old for it.
I’ve actually had zero issues with tidal since I switched a couple of months ago, it pays artists better and I think it has more artists on it. I don’t use the mobile app much though if that’s what’s buggy, I mainly use the desktop app (on Linux) and occasionally the Plex integration to listen from my tv
I stopped using Spotify after I noticed that a song’s share URL contains unique tracking elements. Then they started trying to lock down the podcast market, which reaffirms that leaving was the right choice.
You can disable it pretty easily in the settings. I wish more apps let you opt out of ads so easily.
I’d love to leave streaming services and roll my own server, but I rely on things like the Release Radar and song radios for discovery and just haven’t been able to find a self-hosted solution for that.
I don’t want to have to plan out the music I’m going to listen to, I just want to dive in.
I use the Spotify data via Every Noise at Once (https://everynoise.com/research.cgi?mode=name&name=) to gather band suggestions, but it is an annoying amount of work compared to having a script that sees all of my music and makes a playlist of 20+ songs using that data for me. Have not found a solution for that.
Me listening to Joe Rogan in my car:
“This episode is brought to you by Athletic …”
“Aaaargh! I pay Spotify! They gave you eight and eight figure contract! Why the fuck are there ads??”
the synonymes entry in the english language for “ads” is expanding everyday
…I’m still the product?
Yes. You always will be with any corporate streaming service.
deleted by creator
Use blackhole or newpipe
Spotify is garbage. You pay them to basically pirate unlimited music (they pay table scraps). They have no values or integrity, but they do have a greedy business model.
I buy albums off bandcamp instead. Or from the artist’s site directly.
It’s personally a catch 22 for me.
I listen to an absolutely absurd amounts of different artists. A large portion of them simply don’t have albums available for purchase and if they did… I would actually go broke buying all the stuff I listen to.
Every single day I type in a Combo of 2 random letters and numbers into spotify and listen to the first artist I don’t recognize.
It really sucks that Spotify doesn’t pay the artists anything reasonable but I haven’t found an alternative that allows me to consume as much different music as I currently do.
This isn’t even including the podcasts and audio books into the equation.
It’s the same as pirating, except Spotify gets paid.
Why letters and numbers?
Some artists use numbers in their names and adding numbers will change what the search returns sometimes with odd results.
Bandcamp is DRM-free, so whatever you buy there, you truly own it. Unlike on most other platforms.
DRM-protected music stores went extinct over a decade ago, following Steve Jobs’ open letter to the music industry on the topic. By 2009, iTunes music was completely DRM-free and alternative stores had to follow suit to remain competitive.
Wow, you are right! I was confused about iTunes, because it seems to require an app, but it is DRM-free and so is Amazon Music. That’s great! So I guess only Spotify has DRM.
All the streaming services use DRM, it’s just download stores that are DRM-free. Which makes sense, when you buy an album, you should own it.
I see, that makes sense. But I also think that every content that you have paid to access should be DRM-free, so even in a streaming service.
Greedy business model seems slightly unfair tbh. Spotify struggles to remain profitable and they’ve only raised their prices by like $1 in a decade
Just because they’re incompetent doesn’t mean they’re not greedy.
Also, executives can still be cleaning up even as the company struggles to profit.
Executives being greedy isn’t the same as a greedy business model
This makes no sense. Greedy execs are the ones who would implement a greedy business model to pursue their greed.
What part of the executive compensation package are you taking specific issue with exactly? From what I could see, they’re largely paid in stock and the CEO hasn’t taken a bonus since COVID.
Or are you just talking executives in general and not looking at what Spotify does specifically?
So they’re incompetent on top of greedy. They’re selling access to everybody’s music and paying peanuts.
yeah, it’s not spotify’s fault that splitting $10/month between all the music you listen to doesn’t pay the artists very much.
Yea, companies that pay more typically either charge more (Tidal) or have the advantage of a massive profitable company backing them (Apple Music)
Maybe they shouldn’t’ve thrown so much money into the pivot to podcasts, then thrown a bunch of money at that meathead idiot.
Yeah that $100 billion they gave Joe Rogan is where your payments go.
they didn’t give Joe Rogan 100 billion dollars you dunce.
I think it was 1000000 trillion bazillion dollars, you drooling braindead goon.
This comment says a lot more about you than it does about me.
Remember when you called me a dunce? And now you’re self righteous? Anyway, goodbye.
No company in their right mind would pay one person $100,000,000,000! Come on!
A bit difficult if you want to just stream random music that somehow matches your interests.
If you’re going to p1r@te, you don’t have to pay sp0tify to do it…
That doesn’t really fix the “somehow matches your interests” part of their need. Your torrent software isn’t able to track your listening habits and recommend things that other people with similar habits also liked.
Pandora is still around and does a decent job finding new music based off listening habits.
I’m not going to deal with a seed box and a ton of pain in the ass steps in between to listen to music. I’d rather pay Spotify or Amazon or Google or any of the other providers because of the convenience factor.
Also owning music isn’t something I particularly care about. Games, maybe, but music is so broad that I’ll just listen to something else.
There are patches like spicetify which can do that and way more than just adblocking with a ton of customisation if that’s what you’re looking for
WTF is a seedbox?
I have no trouble listening to unlimited music, it’s literally everywhere.
Plus it’s not just about owning the album (although I absolutely insist on listening on whichever device I choose). It’s also about paying the artist.
Sp0tify pays peanuts. When I buy the album from the band’s site or bandcamp they get a hell of a lot more money from me. And I want to support them.
You cannot support any artist through Spotify.
How I have to torrent cause my isp will cancel service over it.
If you’re pirating you’re not paying the artist at all. Spotify is better than pirating.
I don’t pirate. I buy albums.
You’re advocating for piracy explicitly
If you’re going to p1r@te, you don’t have to pay sp0tify to do it…
There’s other streaming services. I’d recommend any over Spotify.
Which one do you prefer / recommend?
Soundcloud is one! Some artists let you download their music and others don’t. Other than than Soundcloud isn’t open source, I don’t see what’s wrong with them.
I’ve been enjoying apple music on Android (the audacity, I know) mainly for family plan convenience. I used to use Tidal, back when it was the only one offering higher quality audio. Now that’s more common.
However I do miss a few things from Tidal. It had full credits for albums and songs like a CD would have had. And when you’re on a track and go to the artist it will let you pick which one you want if there’s features or a collab. Apple Music will just automatically take you to the page of the first artist listed. So that’s something to consider especially if you’re into hip-hop.
There’s many options though and they pretty much all pay artists more than Spotify does too.
Honestly it’s a shame that most good music pirating sites have gone to the shitter, literally the only way to actually pirate and own music I could find via searching vigorously was through youtube to MP3 converters.
rutracker and soulseek are good options for finding music.
Napster was so much fun back in the day.
I cancelled my subscription. They’re upping the price for the listening even though they’ve been steadily cutting the payouts to independent artists for years. Support small artists instead.
Music ads are nonsense
Install ViMusic on Android and all your problems are gone. https://f-droid.org/packages/it.vfsfitvnm.vimusic/
Arr.
Dude right though!! Those are the worst!! And they only seem to pop up when I’m tossing a playlist on right as I start driving, worst fkn thing!!