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So OP has posted this everywhere, even getting it flagged on Hacker News. Article is weak sauce:
I would agree with author that there are many problems with Spotify but concentrating on the artist revenue per stream and then publishing your top hits of the year as YouTube links? Really? Go and find out what the artist share per stream is on YouTube (regular YouTube video) for soundtracks. I’ll wait. Hint: there’s a reason that soundtracks using unauthorised copyrighted work get muted or taken down rather than revenue being redistributed.
Recommending a paid desktop MacOS music app for local content? There are hundreds of local music players but OK… but none of the criticisms of Spotify were about the client! Foobar2000 (mentioned for mobile playback) supports Spotify streaming…
Article seems to boil down to ‘I got tired of Spotify recommendations and I am an aspiring musician at an early stage in my professional career so I am recommending Bandcamp and soap boxing about artist revenue share’ . There’s a reason that people, some with local music libraries in the TeraByte range listen to Spotify. There’s also all the competing services - Apple Music; YouTube; Deezer; Tidal; Amazon; etc…
Recommendation to OP: If you are trying to persuade people on something, then decide what point you want to concentrate on, consider the pro’s and cons for your position, and make your point based/reinforced on that. Don’t meander around a bunch of inchoate personal gripes and affections that don’t really relate to one another or any particular point.
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I down voted because you added nothing to the discussion. It was just a completely empty criticism. On top of that, I read the article, and it’s clear to me that this poster read the article too.
But I’m curious as to what your actual criticism is.
What was the main point he missed?
They went back and read it and edited their comment apparently lolz. What an ass.
Unlike Disney, Netflix, etc, Spotify is the only streaming service where I never think oh this is missing let’s find a torrent.
Music streaming (at least for the consumer) is so much better than video. Where it’s super scattered over multiple services all wanting money.
Maybe you don’t listen to many international songs, I always find grey songs on the playlists I like.
Probably most artists I listen to are European or American.
I find that I can only find about 90 percent of what I want to listen to. That’s more than enough of a burden to opt out entirely. Live albums, demos, collabs, and obscure dead bands you can’t really find with great success
Yeah I’ve never fully switched to Spotify because of that but I do like their library and ease of use, the playlist function we use for parties a lot and it’s just easy and everyone understands it already.
As a Phish head and purveyor of bootlegs, and sometimes specific masters of classic albums, my personal music collection has always been a sacred space.
I frequently can’t find songs. I will say they generally are obscure though.
I agree with her arguments about Spotify overall, but this amused me-
To celebrate my newfound freedom, I downloaded a 13-minute long Taylor Swift megamix, and CAN YOU DO THAT ON SPOTIFY? I didn’t think so. I also then went on to Bandcamp after I got paid the other day and bought some music. It felt good.
As if Spotify somehow prevented her from doing those things anyway…
Don’t ya know if you have prime and Netflix you can no longer legally purchase a blue ray ever
Last year I’ve listened to more than 6k different songs. If you’d be generous for the math and say 12 songs an album, 9 euro per album it’s still over 5k a year. Spotify is just cheaper for me, even the high seas would cost me too much in terms of time
Everyone who listens to the same downloaded 50 song playlist everytime they open Spotify premium is paying for you to use the service
But I use it much more similar to you than those people so I am also winning lol.
Not to mention that if everybody listened like thak guy spotify would just increase prices.
I listened to 6k songs, just because spotify has them.
Do i need it? Absolutely not.
I cancelled when they increased the price and i went back to buying an album for life from the discount bin and putting it on repeat with the other 20 albums i still owned.
Back when I had an ipod I spent days downloading songs. I don’t think my listening habits changed all that much, now I just don’t download them via “legitimate” routes anymore
I find it most useful as a radio replacement for this reason, you can’t find a service with more quantity. Personal music collection is still my main source though.
Spotify has always been a pain in the ass. For the longest time you couldn’t listen to a single song someone shared because they forced you to create an account.
Companies that force you to create an account to do the simplest action are assholes.
I don’t know why I feel like this is okay for Spotify to do but not YouTube.
My thinking is clearly flawed
Yup, either require an account to use the service, or don’t. Don’t do some weird middleground. It totally makes sense for saving playlists or whatever.
Companies that force you to create an account to do the simplest action are assholes.
OOT but Instagram does this and IT SUCKS
Worse, they don’t even show you properly like “Sign In to visit this account”, they just says the error message “Please try again”. I thought there was something wrong with my Firefox or adblockers… But, nope it’s like that in other browsers IIRC
Spotify used to be good but now they charge you the price of buying an album outright.
Might as well buy an album monthly and actually own it.
It was 9.99 for many years and now it’s 10.99, a ~10% increase. Not sure how a single, small price increase in years turns something from good to bad. Sure, there are many reasons to dislike Spotify, but pricing?
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Hey all, I’d like to distance myself from Spotify, but I really enjoy their discovery features. I’ve learned about a lot of bands both new and old that I wouldn’t have otherwise. Do you have any suggestions for a service that could replace this aspect of it?
Not that it’s any better in terms of ethics or artist pay, but YouTube Music has relatively decent auto playlist generation with settings for discovery. Plus you get ad-free YouTube without having to use piped or vanced or whatever people are using these days.
Yeah I know it’s not a popular position these days but I have been a Google Music subscriber since the early days.
IMO YT Music doesn’t disappoint when it comes to finding what you’re looking for.
And not having to worry about fighting Google on ad-blockers with YT is a convenient add-on.
I find last.fm’s “similar artists” feature more accurate that Spotify’s. But that’s just for finding new stuff and tracking your history. Not really for actually playing the music. I linked it to Spotify and use them both together
There’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time, used to love last.fm and pandora etc
If you like modern rock, theres a free app (no ads or any bullshit either) or listen via website. Former radio DJ quit the industry and started his own online station. Im definately biased here as i used to listen to him all the time when i would drive all day long, but as its literally free and not supported by ads.
No account needed also
Anyways if you like modern rock whatwasthatradio.com
It is dedicated to only playing new music
He didnt like all the amazing music that exists to continue to go completely unnoticed by commercial radio so hes doing it himself
Hes supported by subscribers on patreon etc
If i remember correctly all songs are 36 months or newer
This is a proper SOCAN licensed service (canadian broadcasting license I think) so hes doing it proper.
I personally have found at least a dozen new artists to listen to because of this free service
heres some of the bands he has done interviews with to give you an idea.
Search your favourite artists. Wiki them etc. and learn about them whilst simultaneously finding where they’re members play in other bands or have other projects. Also, it can illuminate what they’re influences were/are and you can listen to that too. I find a shit-tone of new music this way.
Deezer. Interface/UX is a little jank but it’s private and discovery is good.
Radio Paradiso. Berlin based radio. Weird and wonderful.
I just quit Spotify too and went back to mp3s I’ve downloaded with Limewire. I got sick of playlists, messy UI, etc. I also got tired of people talking about their top music of the year. I honestly don’t care what you listened to the most.
All my mp3s are on my phone and on my Mac and work great
I also am not guilty not giving artists the $.0003 per play every time I play a son. Less guilty than the $1 per song in the 2010s or $20 per album in the 2000s…
I quit Spotify too though still in Apple Music. Hopefully later I’m able to buy non-DRM music (from something in Bandcamp to CD or even Vinyls). Actually I went to Vinyl store yesterday, it was such a refreshing experience.
Honestly I got sick of subscription. I know I’m not alone with that. I want to actually own my own music. I don’t want to pirate either 'cause I still genuinely support those artists.
Just a heads up, Bandcamp has gotten a little shady in the past year or so. I honestly forgot what happened, but I think they got bought out by some shitty label that’s known for treating artists like shit.
But tbh I don’t remember correctly
I know what happened–they got bought by Epic (yes, Fortnite’s Epic), then I think sold just last year, and now their situation is I think in limbo, not sure
Down voted cause substack allows nazi content.
Blocking because irrelevant comments are annoying
Upvoted because this article was an interesting read.
How do you deal with discovery?
That’s the hard part for me, the only way I find new music is by it ending up on a continuous playlist or something similar.
I have broad tastes, which makes it difficult to not be boxed into a recommendations genre on many platforms (Spotify included).
I use the “Lite” version of spotify that isn’t strictly available for download in the states. It still has real shuffle and isn’t as bogged down with bloat features. Literally the only downside is no sleep timer.
I only used Spotify for podcasts when I used to be on the road all the time. For music, I’ve had a free Pandora account for years now. Does what I need it too. And with wireguard+pihole I don’t get ads either.
Muaicbee+poweramp with 600gb music for 15 years now. Love it. Nice to see other people wanting to follow the old ways.
I’ve been using Musicbrains Picard for tagging and Plex for streaming but will be switching to Jellyfin for my new build.
Actually have been using foobar2000 upnp server on my internal network more often lately. BubbleUPNP for an Android client works really nicely.
This was my setup for the longest time. Just a few years ago did I switch to musicbee+plex+plexamp. Also last.fm ftw
Last weekend I used https://github.com/linsomniac/spotify_to_ytmusic to copy my Spotify playlists over to YouTube Music, and the shuffle play is SOOO much nicer there! That was my primary gripe with Spotify, the shuffle play is idiotic
I quit Spotify the other day too. I pay for tidal nowadays. I don’t like running widevine on my machine so I rip flacs with tidal-dl. Honestly, great stuff. Would recommend.
