Submitted 8 months ago by 3dcadmin@lemmy.relayeasy.com to technology@lemmy.world
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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…
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.
If you’re on Android you won’t need a family plan, just get ReVanced and patch YT Music so it’s ad-free and plays in the background.
Amazon’s Prime Music? Most people have prime anyway, I think that comes with the ad version. Less than Spotify to switch to add free.
If you still have access to any .edu email addresses, you can get student rates for Apple Music, and probably others.
Is there any reasonable option that I can use on a Garmin watch standalone? I like to run without my phone and listen to a podcast and Spotify has been my go to.
Can your watch play mp3s? Most podcasts are available for download that way too.
I’m pretty sure it can, but I don’t actually know what subscription services or how it works to get podcasts downloaded. Spotify has been pretty easy. I guess it’s time to look into this stuff. I have been doing this stuff legit for a while, but I guess I could get back on the high seas too if I have to. I just wanted to make sure the people making content were getting paid, but I think Spotify is bad for that too. So tired of good services getting slowly worse.
One of the main thing Spotify has going for it is indie artists, without a label. And so a large portion of my collection will not be on services like Tidal or Apple Music
No biggie. I never had subscriptions. I always thought it was a waste of money.
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’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?
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.
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.
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!
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.
Will they be raising their rates in India? Because that’s where Spotify thinks I live now.
Well my decision to cancel Spotify last month is already paying off.
You can rip MP3 files by using a Youtube-to-MP3 converter.
Just stop using Spotify entirely.
And once you have them ripped (however you choose to do that), host them via a media server so you can access them from whatever device you like.
github.com/justin025/onthespot
Way better. My personal library is reaching 375k songs.
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
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.
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.
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).
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
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!
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.
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
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 switched to Tidal when I realised their stream quality was, at the minimum, double Spotify, and cheaper. Then all the controversial shit about Spotty came out and I was just shaking my head disapprovingly from the balcony
Hell yeah tidal friend. Same here. The only annoying thing is its memory for where I was in a song/playlist. Seems like I can click away and it forgets where I was. That’s the one thing Spotify has over tidal
Let’s say it together: Enshittification
It’s been long underway for Spotify; raising prices is just the lastest step.
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.
Also Daniel Ek is investing in AI war company:
So glad he didn’t get his grubby hands on Arsenal FC in the end.
And Trump!
I can’t even imagine paying for it to begin with.
I bought one of those $5 for the entire year accounts off some shady website.
It lasted for 5 years.
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.
of course there are ways round it, but that’s not my point. Getting expensive
Getting expensive would be the wrong wording. The price of subscription is simply following inflation. Otherwise as long as the price stays the same while people get raises, you could say it’s getting cheaper.
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 dumped it months ago and went back to Deezer.
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’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.
Is there any music on spotify that isn’t also on youtube? Youtube has practically everything, it has always seemed to me. I’ve never been tempted by spotify.
The 128 bitrate on YouTube is quite the drag IMO except for like carmusic maybe.
This and the fact that Youtube are just as much robbing gits… like I have said, I don’t want to sound mean but generally I’d like the artists to get paid for their work somehow. Now how to do that is the hard bit
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.
Yarrr! hello there fellow matey! 🏴☠️ Sounds good but, do you also set this up individually on your wife’s and kids phones and devices and keep them updated?
I mostly don’t! The kids are too young, the wife has Home Assistant, Symfonium and has web shortcuts for the arrs. Haven’t had any complaints since I got 2FA and external domain mapped for Hass.
My friend has had good results with jellyseerr with his wife and kids though haven’t got to the point of needing it myself.
Out of curiosity, what is your experience/usage like with this? Spotify is very easy to justify if you heavily use some of their features because there’s not a way (that I know of) to replicate them. For example:
I scrobble with Last.FM for music discovery.
I don’t really use social features and not sure if they’re popular in homelab land. Some people I know share a Plex server.
I’m not a purist about these things tbh, I have an Xbox live subscription, among others, to use social features for pretty much the same reason you’re using Spotify. I might have stuck with them if I was using them more.
A few hours, when you know what you’re doing. A few month when you have to figure it out, and maybe even then, it won’t work, or you’ll have lost a lot of money trying.
This should be a lot easier to do, than it is
Good Lord, others like you do exist!
This might be the actual first time I’ve seen someone just call out the bullshit for some of these people running janky services who don’t have a family they need to support.
Fair, I should clarify: the few hours is for the music parts only. The homelab set up could easily stretch to months … And I’d still recommend doing it to most, it’s great fun setting it up!
Still no lossless?
Dropped it for Tidal years ago, never looked back.
I’ve started collecting CDs and building my own Jellyfin library so I don’t depend on streaming services.
On Qobuz here. I just buy vinyl then rip it directly from Qobuz generally.
not as far as I know!
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.
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.
phillycodehound@lemmy.world 8 months ago
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!