People being so cheap and refusing to pay 5-15$/mo for unlimited music streaming. What a weird reality we’re living in 🙄
Some may not have the money for such expenses.
Some may have ethical issues regarding how the CEO invests his profits into military companies. And Spotify makes less money with ads than with the subscription fee.
Some don’t want to pay for ad-free Spotify, since the subscription fee is much higher than what they make with ads. They don’t see the price as justified.
Some prefer other ways to listen to music, since they have an issue how a plethora of artists don’t really benefit from Spotify and are rather exploited. (Okay, those listeners are probably not meant here anyway as they are not affected.)
Some have a problem with such subscription services, especially if you do not own a copy of the music and there is a risk of the music, they like to listen to, being removed from Spotify’s library.
Some especially don’t want to pay for Spotify if they removed a feature, miss a feature or moved a feature behind the subscription, if that feature was previously available or should be available, because there are some things which are taken for granted or are usually expected and they protest against a business model of “creating value by taking something away”.
Some may be cheap, yes.
But surely not all of them. There can be many reasons and it’s usually a good idea not to shove all people of group X into a single drawer and judge them in such an inconsiderate way.
Not buying the argument that people don’t have 5 usd to spare. People are just being cheap. Either pirate or pay for a service, asking for a free service is plain silly.
If you have ethical concerns then don’t use Spotify at all.
people are just being cheap
pirate
???
I pay for a Spotify family plan and my mom, sister, cousin, and I all use it daily. It’s worth it imo.
Spotify has patents on underestimating your emotional state based on the music you listen to. One can guess they sell such data. A hard pass for me.
Self-hosting Jellifyn/Navidrome has been really fun (but I’m aware it is not something everybody wants/can do).
No, people are upset about the lyrics being removed. And why pay 5 or more bucks a month for lyrics when you can have a page on your favorite browser displaying the lyrics for free?
I prefer that anyways, and this is coming from someone who does the premium family plan.
Spotify promotes and forces you to use DRM. Even if you pay, the content is not ours and you are forces to use malware
Damn this is slick!
https://f-droid.org/packages/com.shabinder.spotiflyer/ one more for good fun
It’s even funnier because the lyrics are provided by MusixMatch
And Spotify pays them…?
I don’t know why anyone pays for Spotify anymore when there are others that are less and are lossless and include shit they are now taking away.
I tried others, stayed with Tidal for a while, but unfortunately had to come back to Spotify. The playlists are just much better and you have access to tons of good user-created playlists.
Integrations (or the lack there of) have me day dreaming about returning to Spotify once in a while. I moved to Tidal and while the catalog is great (except for a weird dearth in Jonathan Coulton songs), I gradually discovered some things I miss. Tidals Alexa app, for example, still can’t play playlists, the Roku app buggy, there’s no desktop app for Linux, swapping music playing from one device to another is not inbult, and things like that.
Also because there are fewer of us Tidal users, FOSS integrations are lacking. The options open to me in home assistant for building things on top of spotify are are vastly greater than anything I can do with Tidal.
The main argument i hear is the recommendation algorithm but it’s really subjective
I like the algo. The “discover weekly” playlist continues to recommend new music that I like and didn’t know existed, at least every week or two. And “song radio” is such a good way to keep a vibe going.
Such as?
Last I checked there’s still no alternative that doesn’t require some sacrifices.
Which do you recommend?
I used to recommend Deezer, mostly for the fact it was the closest to what Google Play used to be in terms of layout and function. But recently they decided to do a downright gross redesign and then actively insulted paying customers that didn’t like it.
So I tried Apple Music (from an iPad I barely ever use), then Tidal, and I’ve tried Tidal and Apple Music, too, and honestly? They’re all doing the same things. Some are in different states of enshitification, but it’s all going the same direction. What Spotify gets away with, all the others eventually attempt. The problem is simply the industry.
I would suggest Tidal, it seems the least far along the path, but it’ll get there too.
I’m genuinely getting ready to start curating my own collection again with Lidarr
Tidal has recently eliminated its most expensive plan and bundled everything it offered into the cheaper tier. So it’s actually the opposite of enshittification. I love it
Spotify Connect usually works really well, I can use it on Linux, it’s relatively cheap.
I don’t see any reason to switch tbh.
I have 8 playlist I’ve been cultivating for like 6 years now, and it’s kind of hard to walk away from that. And I’ll fuck the dirt before I go back and re-make them lol.
Use something like Soundizz to transfer your playlists. Simple and takes like 5 minutes. I transferred everything (playlists, favorite songs, followed artists) from Spotify to Tidal without issue.
Tidal? Really? That’s the alternative? No thanks
There are services that will migrate playlists. They’re not perfect, but I’ve seen them work before. I can’t remember the one I used.
I’ve used SongShift. It told me which items were missing after the transfer.
That sounds familiar. I think I used it too. Thanks!
There just isnt though. Spotify had the best UX of any music streaming service for the longest time and only recently have they started shooting themselves in the foot.
Lossless is pointless and not a selling point compared to interface and usability across hardware. Tidal is probably it’s closest competitor, but it still doesnt have the integration Spotify does.Spotify had the best UX of any music streaming service for the longest time
Not if you actually like have controls and managing music. They’ve been actively fucking their UX’s usability for years. Options just disappearing or being moved to hidden places, garbage shoved in front you constantly, etc.
I’ve discovered recently that if you block artists you won’t be able to see a list of who you blocked later anywhere in the UI be it mobile or desktop or web.
Only way is to request an account data download and then parse the zip file they give you lmfao
So, you’re saying, if I borrow my friend’s Spotify, and block most of their favourite artists, they won’t know what I’ve done or how to undo it?
Living up to your username I see lmao
Yea, the only way to unblock an artist as of now is if you manually navigate to each individual artist page and THEN it’ll have an “Unblock Artist” button (And iirc it only shows up on one version of the app, either desktop or mobile I forgot which). There’s no other indication anywhere else of blocked artists lol
Lossless is pointless
I wouldn’t say its pointless, but it really doesn’t help much considering the quality of your average headset/earpieces.
Even in blind tests with high end gear, people often mistake 320kbps MP3s as the lossless track. Compression is incredible these days and isn’t inherently a bad thing like it used to be, it saves a lot of space and bandwidth with minimal to no perceivable difference in quality.
And as you point out, not even worth considering with average equipment.
Even as an Audiophile, I agree, FLAC is a waste of bandwidth and disk space unless you’re remixing tracks (which most people don’t do!)
I don’t know, I have a couple of tracks that I love, but could never get them in FLAC. I listen to them on a very high volume and always feel like there are bits that would feel smoother if they were lossless. I am unable to confirm or deny that.
You basically need professional headphones and speakers to notice any difference, my guess is that 99% of Spotify customers have headphones that didn’t cost more than $100, so why would they care? I mean, I have nice headphones and speakers and after some blind tests I couldn’t notice any difference.
Or if there is a noticeable difference, you have to really listen for it. Which if you wanna do that, then fine, but the vast majority of the time usually have music on while they are doing something else and don’t sit listening for every subtle difference, if one exists.
Really who cares? The free tier is shit and has always been shit. That’s the point of the free tier, to get you to pay.
Previously they didn’t even have a free tier, now they do and it’s free. Of course not every feature exists and especially not a feature like lyrics which isn’t essential and Spotify has to pay extra for.
When did they not have a free tier? I remember the free version being around at least 10 years ago.
I do remember the free tier being introduced at some point. But it was a really long time ago. Probably 10+ years. I was still on XP back then.
I searched and I may have misremembered, the free version seems to have been around since the start except that the free version was initially invite and desktop only. Eventually everyone could use it but still only on desktop. The free version was even more limited back then it seems with a limit on how many hours you could listen to each month.
I could personally never use it. Because it was so incredibly limited. Not being allowed to skip tracks makes it unusable and I’m genuinely surprised anyone used it apart from trying the service.
I have a faint memory of it being announced that Spotify first got a free tier but I may be completely wrong, I was very young back then. I’m also from Sweden so we had Spotify very early compared to most countries and it got popular very quickly here.
The backlash is generally against all enshitification.
You get a useful free plan. Make it useless over time to convince people to pay for a plan. Make THAT plan useless over time to make people pay for the more expensive plan… repeat until capitalism ends.
That’s why people care. Eg: see all subscription services ever
It’s free 🤷
Also the free tier was worse when it launched. And the free tier has always been useless for me.
Yeha, but they can make their free tier as shitty as they want, it is their product…
If you don’t want to pay, just use one of the thousands tools to pirate music. If you don’t want to pay but still think you deserve a product with all the features you like, then you’re delusional.
Yeha, but they can make their free tier as shitty as they want
Who suggested they couldn’t? Having the right to do something doesn’t mean no one else can voice their displeasure.
If you don’t want to pay but still think you deserve a product with all the features you like, then you’re delusional.
It has nothing to do with “deserve”. Shitty businesses practices are worth calling out. Especially because this has nothing to do with supporting Spotify and everything to do with enriching stockholders. It’s a sign of desperation: they can’t make their product better to entice new customers, so they’re making their free product worse. It’s trashy and greedy.
But please, go on expending your energy defending a corporation from valid criticism.
I agree, but this isn’t one of those cases. Netflix, Disney, and Amazon adding ads to their paid products is worth calling out. Microsoft adding ads to their paid OS is worth calling out. Roku changing the rules and forcing people to agree to arbitration after purchase of a TV is worth calling out.
But Spotify putting lyrics behind their paid service isn’t like that at all. You can easily get lyrics with an Internet search, it’s a non-issue. Either pay or look it up yourself.
So I agree with the person you’re responding to, it’s not worthwhile criticism. I have no problem with corporations making money, I have a problem with corporations abusing their position to screw over customers, and Spotify has been remarkably well-behaved.
Right, I used their free tier for so long that I even started enjoying the lack of control I had. Like, music would just play for me. I bought the subscription because I really wanted to give them the money. I recall their ads even being only about Spotify premium, so I wouldn’t get random shit like YouTube ads.
they want, it is
Yes, but, like comma splices, we get to judge them.
LTT mentioned some time ago on the Wanshow about how gaking away is destroying more goodwill than adding new stuff only to the premium tier.
This is probably why most are so worked up about the issue.If you don’t want to pay, then don’t use it. Regardless of everything, music producers still need to live and pirating is a shit move to help them.
If I won’t pay, pirating isn’t going to take money away from them. Yeha, I know it is stealing, I won’t pretend it isn’t like many do, but hey, if they are giving me a shit service, they left me no choice.
I pay for most of what I consume but when I have no choice, I pirate. I do pay for Spotify premium, I don’t even mind the free tier, I just wanted to give them the money because their app is great.
Kudos for paying Spotify (as I do). I disagree on “if they give me shit service” part. If that happens, you have an option to either switch service or don’t use any of them. IMO pirating is not an option. Also when pirating though P2P, you also distribute the content.
The backlash is generally against all enshitification.
Or, as we call it, the principle of the thing.
If people are thinking “I don’t care, I got mine”, they need to learn why that elitism is wrong.
but it’s a free plan and if you can’t afford 5-15$/mo for unlimited music and can afford to spend time complaining about this then you have some much bigger problems in your life.
Why are they even charging you for lyrics to begin with? It’s not like they write them. It costs nothing to give you that feature for free.
Kind of like the YouTube app requiring a subscription for background playing. It’s a basic function that does not cost them anything, yet they break it to sell it back to you.
Stripping extremely basic features away and locking them behind paywalls is shitty and should be called out as such, full stop.
It costs nothing
I highly doubt that. Lyrics are copyrighted like anything else, so record labels are going to charge for it.
like the YouTube app requiring a subscription for background playing
That’s an artificial limitation, as evidenced by NewPipe, Grayjay, and multiple others offering the same exact thing without a premium tier.
Because they need to pay their supplier of synced (and non-synced) lyrics, Musixmatch.
I’m still holding onto Bandcamp and hoping they don’t enshittify. It’s even Bandcamp Friday today where they give their share to the musicians.
I like it because I build a library of music I keep, so some months I don’t pay anything at all. But depending on what you listen to it might not be the best. I still like it more than renting music.
If their streaming enshittifies, set up your own jellyfin homeserver
Yep, download perfect quality FLACs from Bandcamp and self-host them.
For a moment I thought they’re doing this on the paid tier. Who am I kidding, it’s probably just a matter of time till they pull this number.
Deezer (paid for flac - lossless files) + Deemix-gui + Jellyfin + Symfonium works quite well. Though you need to have a media server, so not exactly a drop-in replacement.
Alternatively, you could use Navidrome.
I use that because it’s natively available in Termux. Yes, Android terminal emulator. My music is on the SD card and I can share it to other devices using Navidrome on LAN. Since I also do this on school network, I put NGINX in front of it for HTTPS… and also because I don’t want to have each thing on separate ports.
I have also got Jellyfin to work once in proot-distro, but I couldn’t reproduce it the last time.
have you ever looked into roon + tidal + jellyfin? looking into media server stuff now and wonder how that would integrate with jellyfin, if it even can.
I’m not too familiar with roon. As for proper metadata, I’ve not had any problems with MusicBrainz’s metadata grabber. It’s a built-in plugin that comes with Jellyfin. Deemix uses your deezer account, which I believe requires the paid version if you want lossless flac files, and I have it configured to place the files in my Media share, which Jellyfin reads from. Symfonium is the android client I use that works with selfhosted media servers.
Just listen to classical music. Problem solved.
Or techno.
And the enshittification of everything continues…
en
shitti
fication
Enpoopification
Congrats on actually using the word appropriately.
My biggest problem is the censure. I’m in my car, “hey google play teenage dirt bag on spotify”. Sounds great until the “her boyfriends a dick he brings a [silence]. And he’d simply kick my ass…”
Or Jay-Z story of OJ : “rich jigga, poor jigga, house jigga, field jigga”
What? Seriously loses all context and meaning.
Spotify redefining the message of whatever was happening… Some cracker ass Swedish company censuiring the n-word when used by an artform that is legitimate and on purpose.
That’s why I collect vinyl. Can’t change that shit up on my listening it. It’s the way it is. If Jay Z wanted to use the N word then I want to hear it like it is. Not some bullshit “jigga” shit wtf is that? Isn’t it denying his message?
Censure is me yelling at you for using the wrong word.
It’s because of this disgusting American cultural puritanism, I don’t know why but Americans especially the boomer cunts lose their shit at the first sight of a slur
Remember Carlin’s famous bit?
Bro, “Puritanism” is a religious movement of the 16-17th century. Maybe you mean purism?
Nonsense.
I had mine set up like that. But it’ll default to the clean version if you ask voice to play a song.
Wtf? Just could not believe, had to check it out for myself. What’s wrong with people.
But Jay Z made that version too, knowing fully that the distributer can choose which pegi-level they want to use - rather than blocking the song altogether, or worse bleeping the bad language.
You can choose which pegi-level you use in the software, maybe your system is set up to defaults?
I think it’s weird to blame this on Spotify…
Granted I haven’t used Spotify for anything but an alarm clock ever since I canceled my premium a year ago, but what censorship are you talking about? 80% of my listening time before I quit was rap and I can assure you, there was a lot of bad language. Most albums and singles that have clean versions have a dirty version as well. Back in the day, clean and dirty were listed as separate albums, but they changed it so that it’s one listing and you have to somehow pick which version you want to look at/listen to/add to playlists. But maybe they changed that again I don’t know. I also vaguely remember there being a user setting for showing explicit content, but I’m not sure.
When you request a song through voice (like in your car), it’ll default to clean versions of songs. Even if your settings are allowing explicit lyrics.
Piracy is coming back, and this time the tech has matured.
Laughs in Deezer
(Serious) question: How do you stand not being able to select individual tracks? I honestly would rather listen to my music in any of the free frontend apps rather than being limited to that extent…
Deezer Free randomly became unavailable a few weeks ago in the Netherlands.
I tried Apple Music recently, and while I wasn’t impressed by the platform, one thing I was legitimately taken back by was how much effort they put into the lyrics. The little animations as the lyrics follow the song, where the words move in different ways based on the song in question, it’s really aesthetically pleasing.
Some of the animations definitely feel programmed by people who were genuine fans. The little ways the words animations move along with certain infections in the singer’s delivery, or react to minor shifts in tone. There’s some care being taken with them, song by song. I was legitimately impressed, and I seldom ever have anything nice to say about Apple.
It wasn’t enough to keep me paying for it but I genuinely enjoyed it quite a bit.
