Submitted 3 weeks ago by 3dcadmin@lemmy.relayeasy.com to technology@lemmy.world
https://lemmy.relayeasy.com/pictrs/image/f3bee41c-0f4c-4142-8b29-e9cb96741bf7.webp
I have got to admit I canned Spotify subs years ago - but how are they managing to grow their subscriber base whn it is now going to be £11.99 in the UK? That is way, way too high for what it offers…
Let’s say it together: Enshittification
It’s been long underway for Spotify; raising prices is just the lastest step.
Just saying; cancelling Spotify and changing to Qobuz takes five minutes. Sound quality is amazingly better, the curated recommendations are done by human beings that love music, and ‘just works’ with everything that Spotify does. (For us, anyway.) It’s French, rather than Norwegian-American like Tidal is, if you’re trying to stop spending money on everything US at the moment, too.
They don’t have any other recommendations apart from those human made ones though? Couldn’t find what I wanted.
The UI is awful and their artist pages are normally blank for indy artists.
The migration is pretty seamless though, and they apparently pay their artists way better.
They have the human made ones, they have the “artist radio” function that plays songs similar to a band you like, they have a weekly top 30 based on stuff you’ve been listening to. The headline ‘albums of the week’ are based on what they like, which I don’t think is unfair - I’ve really enjoyed some of them.
I listen to a lot of metal and electronic, and I’ve always found the descriptions excellent - usually several paragraphs even for the most obscure of bands. Was well impressed that they had Lambrini Girls as one of their ‘albums of the week’, and their album at studio quality. Not that that’s essential for punk. Admittedly I don’t listen to a lot of indy, but they’ve always had what I’ve wanted to listen to.
My main complaint about the UX is that it’s nearly identical to Spotify, but I suppose there’s not much else you can do. Something particular about it that you dislike?
I also just switched to Qobuz. I like to listen to albums and playlists. The UI is more minimal than Spotify which I enjoy. I like the fact it’s not constantly trying to push new things like podcasts, concerts etc. on me. I just want to listen to music and pay the artists for it!
As much I despise Spotify, I’m trying out Qobuz and it’s just not really it.
No folder organisation for playlists or albums.
No Linux application.
No lyrics.
No support for smart speakers.
No information linking to artist tours and merch.
Generally lacking when it comes to non western artists.
Prides itself on providing high quality music, yet still only has lower quality masters for some artists compared to Apple Music, Tidal, and even Spotify.
I want to love it, like the way it loves and respects the music industry, with it’s special magazine etc, but it’s just not it.
I’m on Tidal right now and currently considering the switch to Qobuz. There’s no official (or unofficial) Linux client which is kind of a bummer. Tidal at least has a half-decent unofficial one…
Yeah, I could just use the web player or strawberry but I just prefer having a dedicated app.
Yeah, the web client works just fine on Linux. A good native client would be better, of course, but I’d rather use the web one than a half-assed native one.
For those using spofity connect: tidal has “tidal connect” as well, which is identical and exactly as supported. Qobuz unfortunately lacks this feature, to my knowledge.
I personally also prefer the tidal algo to Spotify and qobuz, but that is a matter of preference.
It’s quite easy to download Tidal content on any device w/o the app as well—for educational purposes, of course.
For some, Tidal may be a better alternative. I’ve been quite happy with it. Others may prefer Qobuz.
Qobuz released Qobuz connect back in May
Do they have an API? I use a lot of third party recommendation services, to avoid Spotifys and would love to make sure I can create playlists into it
Im 90% sure they have an API, I’ve seen github projects that mention using it
Qobuz catalog is extremely lacking IME.
I’m glad to hear this! I’ve just cancelled our Spotify this past week and my partner is looking for a new service (I only listen to the same albums on repeat so I’m going to survive).
Third one in a little over two years. They say it’s to keep up with inflation as if they’re a retail store operating on razor thin margins and people accept that.
Friendly reminder that your “legally acquired” library of FLAC files never raises its subscription prices!
I will never part from locally stored music. I do, however, would love to have my collection run through a recommendation algorithm for discovering new music.
Would scrobbling to e.g. ListenBrainz (or last fm) be an option for you for discovery?
Yep. Hooray for self hosting!
I’m quite unhappy with spotify. I don’t care about the price, but it keeps repeating the same and same music again. Their client isn’t open source, and it’s just a wrapped website. It sucks.
There are ways you can use a Spotify account registered in another country and you basically pay about £2 a month. I’m mainly into 80s and 90s music and used Spotify to discover music, and once I come across a song I like I add the album name to a list (i.e. note it down) and find the CD from a second hand shop or failing which obtain the FLAC files some other way. This way I now have an offline library that has most of the songs that I love. Spotify will be there as long as I can just pay £2-ish but the moment they try the age verification or raise prices, its bye-bye for them.
They age verify in the UK already…
For most people though they won’t be hacking things to use Spotify. I agree £2 a month is OK but for me the issue is they charge a fortune yet pay artists a pittance
True. For me it hasn’t come up so far, possibly because my account is registered in a different country. It’s going to be a bit inconvenient but probably time to give them the finger and look elsewhere.
I ripped CDs to FLAC, put them on a Plex server, and use Plexamp on my computer and phone. Now I’ve got my own personal streaming service.
Not everyone will do that though… plenty of people I know have zero idea about that kind of stuff
This is the way to go!
spotify lost me as a customer as soon as I learned that they gifted 150k to Trump for his inaugaration party
Just leaving this here from the excellent !PurchaseWithPurpose@lemmy.world Image
From that chart Qobuz seems to be the all round best deal. Is there any catch?
I use Qobuz! It works well most the time. And it has a huge library. Some things are not as polished as some of the bigger companies. And there’s a lot of Initial setup to get it working…
That said, I would say it’s a great option. I do wish it had better continuous play options, as sometimes I listen to a playlist, and then it just stops. But that may be part of the learning curve. I’m not really a big “playlists” guy… I’d like to start a radio and have it find similar artists (similar to Pandora 12 years ago) But that doesn’t really seem to be the way companies are going anymore.
I have several Google mini devices (I know, I know. I’m working on it, but that’s a whole other process) and they don’t really seem to get along with qobuz all the time.
Overall, I like it, but it still needs work.
Platform podcasters who spread misinformation
Lol just say you don’t like Joe Rogan
spotify pays me half a cent per stream, the profit margins for them must be fucking insane. and the music sounds like shit. I’d much rather people pirate it than support these leeches
if you want to support artists you like, buy the music, ideally on bandcamp. if you do have to steam it, Deezer at the very least won’t vandalize the audio
What do you think about Qobuz as a musician?
My main beef with spotify is their attempt to privatize and monopolize podcasting.
Spotify offers audio hosting and a large userbase, but does not provide rss. A few people I like are trapped in this, and I have no way to listen to their shows apart from using spotify. They refuse to understand that this is an issue, just like youtubers are ok with lock-in.
Podcasting infrastructure is not monopolized yet, like video is. It is even bigger problem for me than underpayid artists.
So boycotting, and if you undersrand that, you should too.
Podcasting infrastructure is not monopolized yet, like video is. It is even bigger problem for me than underpayid artists.
It helps a lot that audio hosting is so much cheaper than video hosting
Also Daniel Ek is investing in AI war company:
And Trump!
So glad he didn’t get his grubby hands on Arsenal FC in the end.
Lazy doormat Spotify users: “Okay… but this is the LAST, LAST, LAST TIME FOR REAL. Do it again and there’ll be a hashtag and a series of Tiktok memes!”
I make that subscription cost back in 10 minutes of work.
Doormat Spotify users 🤣
“I’m SO good at making money that I don’t care when people cheat me out of it for no other reason than because they feel like it. This is something I am proud of.”
I dumped it months ago and went back to Deezer.
When I got tired of Spotify’s shitty practices, I looked into other streaming services that could compare, and honestly I didn’t like any other offerings. So I said fuck it, I’ll just download everything and play it locally.
What made the jump easy was a service called Spotidown, I even paid for the ad free version it was so convenient. You literally copy the spotify link for songs and playlists and it let’s you download it. There’s a couple different services like this, that will make the switch easier.
I mean, you could just pay the artists for their music.
I do! I go to concerts and buy merch from the artists I listen to, which gives them exponentially more money than the fractions of a penny Spotify gives them. I’ve paid for Spotify long enough to justify downloading the music I had saved, any future music I want I’ll just purchase from Bandcamp or something similar.
I’ve settled for Qobuz. Its discovery features are terrible, but it’s basically a music storefront with a streaming library. High-quality, had basically my whole library and I can buy albums directly for download.
Oh I didn’t know you could buy music from Qobuz, is it a better system than bandcamp? I’ve never used either so Im at the perfect time to find a good one.
Does SpotiDown have a linux version? If not, do you know an alternative?
Nicotine+/soulseek. won’t copy your spotify lists but you can manually download everything. will take time obviously as you’ll have to search for everything.
I wrote a little python script to download all my YouTube music songs for my navidrome setup. I’m sure you could do something similar for spotify if you know python.
Not that im aware of, sorry. There is a Windows based spotidown software, but no Linux. Spotidown is a web based service normally, so you could definitely use it in Linux. I actually downloaded all my music from it using my phone!
There is a ReVanced version of Spotify, for people who didn’t already know. Block ads and get premium features for free: revanced.app
(There’s also YT Music ReVanced)
Spotify has a become a shit show lately. I don’t like that the CEO is supporting a a genocidal state, the platform is full of fake AI artists and playlists. Artists aren’t getting paid enough. the prices hikes and the app just feels so bloated with unnecessary bullshit. Because of this, I switched to self hosting my own music server (Navidrome, and Lidarr) and I use the symphonium app o Android. Really happy with that solution
You mean replacing a bunch of people with AI didn’t work?
Fediverse has quite alot of indie musicians. Check out LABR http://labr.online/ or the indie beat https://theindiebeat.fm/ and try some new music and support creatives directly.
Still no lossless?
Well my decision to cancel Spotify last month is already paying off.
anything to sustain the hateful joe roegan podcasts on the platform.
Ditched Spotify and bought myself a galleon and a tricorner hat instead. Haven’t looked back.
Lidarr + Navidrome + Feishin + Metube
Mullvad for acquiring, TailScale and Symfonium for listening while away from home
This sounds like a lot of setup but probably took a few hours in total to set up the various docker images and get them working together.
I spend my saved money on vinyls, official merch, and SoundCloud or BandCamp purchases for my local library.
Meanwhile the new Seagate 26tb HDD is going for $270
www.bestbuy.com/site/…/6614708.p?skuId=6614708&re…
I’ve been downloading my media for over 10 years now and I only have like 2 1/2 Terabytes filled, a 26tb drive could hold most people’s lifetime media collections.
Owning your own storage and files is the only way to ensure you keep access to the media you want.
It’s cheaper if you have 5 friends and take the family plan. I’m paying ~€2 a month for the last couple of years.
I don’t see why people hate Spotify so much. I used to go out and pay £10 for an album decades ago, multiple times a month sometimes. Now I can basically listen to anything for the price of an album a month. Plus, you can play Spotify on just about any device, even all the open source solutions that Netflix blocked like 15 years ago. On top of that it’s Swedish rather than American.
What pisses me off is that I can’t have a family plaln associated with my main Google Workspace account. Because it’s a Workspace account. So if I want to have a family plan for YouTube Music I need to have it associated with a gmail account not my workspace account. That’s such bullshit, if you ask me!
I’m paying £20/m for a lossless family plan from Deezer… That’s how they get you 😭. Now I’d have to apologize to my family members if I took away their subscription. Used to be around £17 when I started a few years back.
I do not recommend getting a family plan.
They have prices? People are paying? 🤔🏴☠️🦜
I’ve had a grudge against Spotify waaaayyyy back when it first launched as an app on the computer.
For some reason, the Spotify app on my Mac wasted a ton of resources and battery. And it made me so mad I’ve never used them since.
Then years later they made dumbass Joe Rogan the face of the company so fuck all that.
JumpyWombat@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
You guys are paying for Spotify?
chaosCruiser@futurology.today 3 weeks ago
I guess some people are, as long as it’s a good balance of convenience and price. Ages ago, Napster, Kazaa and DC++ were considered more convenient than buying music. I guess torrents are used for that these days.
dan@upvote.au 3 weeks ago
One of the 2000s P2P networks still exists today, and still has a pretty decent-sized community using it: Soulseek. It was released a month after KaZaA.
Master@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
I work a desk job. I can put pirated music on my work computer or ill get fired. Only real option is a pay service.
Valmond@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Firefox & ublock and there are no publicities.
My 'ol android apk doesn’t work any more thoug… and can’t find a new one (Hint hint, blink blink)
Zidane@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
I’ve been using a cracked yt music since the Spotify crackdown. I miss my playlists often :^(
JumpyWombat@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Same with pi-hole.
victorz@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
We have the duo plan, for me and my wife. Kids don’t need one yet.
CallMeAnAI@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Yes. Go back to your bubble now.
JumpyWombat@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
What bubble?
devfuuu@lemmy.world [bot] 3 weeks ago
Their strategy has been for years to make the phone app very constrained if you’re not paying, so to have any decent experience that was kinda required.
3dcadmin@lemmy.relayeasy.com 3 weeks ago
I don’t no. But as they keep removing features from the free account, and here in the UK you at least need an account now to play anything people do