Song quality is terrible. The features are lacking and rarely useful. Now they have increased the rates and take away car play. I left when I realized my top artists and songs were the same every year. Much better to buy the songs when the quality is way better and I actually own the media
Do you and I live on a different planet? I grew up when you downloaded actual poor quality music. I stream Spotify at the highest bitrate it has, and it sounds fine. I have a nice system at home.
You talk about features and whatnot, and admittedly I am a simple user. I have albums I like, I turn on album and listen through cover to cover. I throw on Smartless, because for some reason I find Jason Bateman and Will Arnett's abuse of Sean Hughes to be endearing.
As per usual, people on Lemmy seem to make up problems, and it ruins any sort of argument against anything. Spotify's audio quality is not the issue. The issue is obviously the artist remuneration. To create this fake argument is to dilute any worthwhile argument, but Lemmy and Reddit before it seems to take this tack wherever possible.
I have discovered numerous artists because of Spotify. Spotify has linked me to their tickets (albeit Live Nation and fuck them) and merch stores, and I've bought their shitty tshirts and vinyls. I would say that's a benefit. And I like some obscure nonsense.
Is it perfect? I don't like how Spotify has handled its personnel. I think they can make their business model related to plays a little more friendly, but holy shit, the idealism here is ridiculous. You have people demanding perfection, without recognizing the alternative is nothing.
I'm gonna sound like a fanboy, but the alternative is Tidal.
Better audio quality, better (imo) suggestions, and not wasting money of podcasts and weird AI bs.
Yep after first releases and concerts, the only people benefitting from the music are the distributors who deserve nothing for the effort the artist put in.
They are not the talent providing the work. They are skimming off talent. They are riding on someone else’s talent. They are the very definition of parasites. They would have no job if there were no talent. Meanwhile the talent can find other ways to sell their work.
The "talent" doesn't have a platform without them. This is a mutually beneficial relationship. The "talent would be waiting tables and playing for peanuts in bars without the industry professionals.
Not OP, but I work in the industry, mostly in the live production side. Here's a taste of behind-the-scenes stuff that artists often rely on others to handle after they leave the recording studio:
Booking shows, radio and television appearances, and other events
Advancing those events with venue staff
Organizing transportation, lodging, and food for tour
Acquiring and managing all of the gear for tour
Getting the artists from show to show while protecting them from themselves and others
Marketing for shows and new releases
Mixing the material the artist just recorded in the studio
Mastering the music the mix engineer put together from that recorded material into a dozen different formats, so you can listen on vinyl, Deezer, YouTube, Spotify, etc.
Mixing the front-of-house (what the audience hears) and mixing the monitors (what the artist hears) for the live show
Making sure all the folks involved with the above are booked
Paying all the folks they booked to make the above happen
I'm not saying the entertainment biz isn't fucked up and that artists don't deserve a bigger slice of the pie, but a lot of artists rely on other folks to handle this stuff for them so they have the space to live their lives, create new music, and give audiences a show worth attending.
Certainly, I depend on people more creative and musically talented than me, but they also depend on me and my technically-proficient and business-savvy peers to translate their creativity into something you can access and enjoy.
Thanks for a great reply. I totally see the need for recording engineers (live and mechanical) and related jobs.
Can you compare the industry now to 10 years ago. What jobs have disappeared? The music press seems much less relevant. Does the A&R executive still exist? Etc.
How's the artist selection? I find a lot of stuff on Spotify that is a bit niche and I wondering if they have it. I tried searching the catalog which they say you can do but not before you sign up for their free trial which I'm not willing to
So far I’ve found everything I looked for, and a few new ones too. Their app features for lyrics and other songs you might like work great. Admittedly, I’m an old metal head who loves singing to a song at the top of the voice, out of tune of course, so I might not be skirting the kinds of niches you like.
I did the same. Paying $11 a month and getting lossless has been a big plus. There were a few songs that were unavailable from my liked songs when moving to Tidal but I also had noticed several songs on my Spotify were unavailable as well too.
My only gripe so far is the Android app drains my battery more than Spotify did, even in the lowest streaming quality.
Or, continue to use Spotify but use xManager on android and spicetify on pc. This will give you the premium experience (and more!) without paying a single penny.
I gave xManager a go, and while it doesn't have ads interrupting your listening, it does still have all the Spotify pop up ads trying to get you to upgrade to premium. It's fine when listening, but selecting what you're listening to is still irritating.
Yeah, those days are generally behind me. I want something that always works and I don't mind paying for a functioning product. I don't think comparing an actual service with ways of essentially stealing that service is a fair comparison, but I appreciate what you're saying.
are you implying these apps don't always work? because I've had little issues with them in the past few years (except that some extensions might stop working but those are just extras so 🤷)
I think I'm just saying that it's okay to pay for a service when it gives you what you pay for. And if you don't want to, that's fine, and for much of my life I did that. I haven't used either of the services you mentioned, but I think it's safe to say setting them up is not as streamlined as just setting up a normal Spotify account would be. And beyond that, as Spotify pushes updates, these services presumably not to respond to those updates, but again, I don't know, haven't used them.
I also think it's a bit beyond the discussion, and like I said, not a fair comparison. Tidal v. Spotify v. Apple Music are, I think, better discussions to have.
Can also recommend Qobuz which allegedly pays even more than tidal. And it also has real losless audio, instead of whatever Tidal is doing.
And you can even buy FLAC files from them, without DRM.
Or use tools which you can find on the internet, where you can download the flac files 'for free' (you still need a subscription).
Wait, so we all hate, or should hate Spotify for the low support for artists, but now that I think about it, there is nothing stopping artists from putting their work in the other platforms as well, are they becoming more rich because of it and we just should go with whichever offers the best service for us?
Don't be harsh on me, I am not defending Spotify at all, just a dumb realization while seeing this graph 😆
I have no idea on the numbers, but given just how huge Spotify is compared to the others, I wonder if record labels just don't see the worth in additionally posting to the other non major platforms like Tidal. Sure it pays ~3x more but it likely has ~50x less users.
Edit: I just wanted tildes before my numbers, I put a backslash before them to cancel them out as formatting codes, but now it just renders as <sub></sub>. If anyone can tell me how I should fix this please tell me
And don't forget that Spotify can only handle around 150 songs in the queue. It doesn't matter how big a playlist is, it will start repeat after a while. The proposed solution by spotify itself is to just deactivate shuffle and start on different songs in large playlist. It's absolutely ridiculous. It bothers thousands of people but they won't fix it. https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/All-Platforms-Option-to-have-a-true-shuffle/idi-p/4880594
But why would i need an extension for that; id much rather they get rid of the smart shuffle (legit the most annoying fucking thing on the app, or just a toggle to keep it off) and fix the shuffle on their own
What? Only 150? Is it some unoptimized list of their in-house song objects? I don't understand how it can be the inefficient. Please tell me they just need to use an array and this isn't them doing that.
I’ve read somewhere some time ago that they generally prefer the songs/files that are already cached somewhere close to the user to reduce costs for traffic whenever the user leaves the choice to Spotify
Yes now tell us how to get that working on any device I have regardless of what network I'm connected to. Assume I'm behind a cgnat, don't have my own domain, and know fuck all about networking.
Finally compare all that hassle to just paying a few bucks per month.
In the same boat. Shit country, behind CGNAT, no money for domain. I found a cheap seedbox I use. Yeah it depends on whether it's worth the hassle... For me, I like tinkering with software and I love the concept of owning my media and that no company has their eyes on my data, so it's worth it. But if you just wanna lay down and watch, Netflix it is. Something always breaks when you self-host 🥲
Streaming services can only be inspiration for new music. Once something has me hooked, it goes into my permanent local library. No subscription based service should be relied on for anything that can't be replicated in 30 minutes.
Interesting, but won't help me personally. The account was erased.
All other services were like: ok, we cannot process your payment due to the war. This one yielded a bizarre message about how I am complicit with Russian army's atrocities in Ukraine and therefore they delete my account till the end of March 2022
Like okay, Spotify you made your political statement, but does it somehow affect the actual political situation? I admire some Russian piracy sites that replaced advertisements with cinematics from Bucha and links to volunteers that helped Ukrainians to move to Europe through Russia
Russian market is minor compared to western market, given the fact that russian market of Music streaming is dominated by Yandex Music.
There were not that many ways of legalizing income from Russian territory because of visa/mc ban and swift ban.
Political climate in Russia was and is quite harsh: bizarre regulations and employees as hostages just to name a few.
Twitter politics (shaming companies that do not exit russian market) was a minor factor I believe. Some western corps are there including the one where I used to work (USA). Also YouTube/google still bans content that authorities find inappropriate (e.g. how to escape draft)
To rephrase: I would not spend 30 minutes listening to ads in order to save 30 minutes of spare time. Probably even less because ads are very disruptive to me, wasting more precious time.
I gave up Spotify partly because they support Joe Rogan, but also because I mostly listen to classical music, and they kept shuffling in Britney Spears.
Spotify tends to think my tastes are more indie than they are, meanwhile YouTube Music (ReVanced) tends to to think my tastes are more mainstream than they are.
I haven't tried any other services yet, but if anyone knows of one that provides good balance of well-known and not so well-known music, and is free (and commercial free; modded/hacked apps are preferred), please let me know.
Every time I start the app up it has some Taylor Swift or other pop music in the thing where whatever I was listening to previously should be. I've never searched for pop music so I'm not sure why they think that's helping.
Oh, well if there are unlimited skips, backs, and direct song plays in the desktop version, your argument would be to support taking those away? That seems fair. But no, the market audience for desktop vs mobile has entirely different uses and needs, I do agree that a product should have the same features, but for free you can't be picky.
I have many friends that complain about these things, that noticed the exact same pattern as you.
And yet, every last single time I've ask them "Have you looked into using a different service? Maybe try one?" they mumble out a noncommittal response and never do.
The question is whether it bothers someone enough to switch, and I cant really say thats the case for me.
Because copying the playlists over and the additional price increase (losing the family plan) are too annoying tbh.
This is it for me. I'm on a family plan so I don't pay for premium and I've over 300 songs in a favourite playlist plus probably 100 odd albums saved. That's a lot for me to try and transfer over.
Man I just got Spotify because these two artists I got into don't have bandcamp so it's really hard to actually get files. Not even piracy worked. They're on every streaming platform though.
I've tried amazon music google music and Spotify over the years. Spotify had by far the best library for me. The others were missing tonnes of incredibly big bands albums.
I'm still bewildered by them changing the "Artists" tab in "Your Library" to show artists you follow (for event notifications) rather than just showing alphabetically, the artists in your library.
Its made the saved library useless for me. Once you have so much music it just becomes ridiculous to group them by album rather than artist. It feels like such an obvious thing that that is how the function should work but no, they insist on trying to make their music streaming service into some kind of social media-music streaming hybrid. Idiots.
Buying an album every month and ripping it for mobile is literally cheaper than Spoofy. No pirating required and there’s a real chance the artist might get a share!
Edit: I do mean a CD, or vinyl if that tickles your fancy.
That implies it's even goddamn possible to get music files. It's a lot harder than I expected if they don't have bandcamp. I suspect region also fucks with it.
Hot take but hasn't been a problem for me. Like, the feature stays off until I turn it on again, and I only turn it on when I'm trying to expand a playlist.
I use Spotify for discovering new songs, mostly for adding to the DJ arsenal. I listen to a lot of music. Enough that I make like 15-20ish playlists a year for various subgenres of tunes either released or discovered that year.
Since I compartmentalize my genres so methodically, smart recommendations tend to be on the money and more of what I'm looking for. But again, when I just wanna hear what I've assembled I just leave it off -- never on unless I turn it on.
Definitely been eyeballing alternatives though, since Spotty is getting deeper into their enshitty arc.
I never want to turn it on, but I do swap from shuffle to regular (depending on whether I want to listen to just the newest stuff I've added), which means I have to click through smart shuffle now too.
Which wouldn't be a huge problem, but if you do it too fast, smart shuffle appears to be off, but the songs it has added are at least partially still in the queue.
As an easily-distracted multitasker I can certainly appreciate the inconvenience of clicking past it. Would be lovely to have a solid on/off in settings to omit the optional from playback.
More options almost always better than fewer in my mind!
Unpopular suggestion these days, but I still find Pandora has the best discovery of the streaming platforms. If you pay for their premium you can make playlists and play songs on demand, too. It's not as good of a UI, but for me it does what I want better than Spotify.
Yeah, I had to read this meme several times over to figure out what it was saying. Smart Shuffle just randomly turns on for people? I've literally never had that happen. It only turns on when I turn it on.
I hate how when trying to add a song to my playlist not knowing if I already have it in my playlist, Spotify web UI sometimes successfully detects duplicate songs but most of the time doesn't. It's very inconsistent and I can't figure out why other than them maybe A/B testing features?
I think it's because Spotify frequently includes the same song as being on multiple albums separately--for example, if a band has a greatest hits album, Spotify considers the greatest hits album as a different song, even though it's identical to the song on the original album.
They could even just be loose singles that are different. My list looks like I have 3 duplicates of Cumbersome by Three Mary Six; they're all actually different versions of the song but since 2 of them were single releases and didn't have an original album, they use the same album artwork the studio version is from.
I stopped paying for and using spotify when they
a. renewed their contract with Joe Rogan
b. changed their music payment policy so that if you aren't trending, you make no money.
My queue disappearing is my number one issue with Spotify. It happens at the most inconvenient time, after I have spent ages getting it all together. I usually give up after that.
