I’ve done it. I’ve finally reached my “old man yells at cloud” moment. Why, why, WHY is Spotify adding features straight out of the social media playbook?
Anybody have recommendations for alternatives?
In my head there’s:
YouTube music (google, gross)
Apple music (no way they’re not on a similar trajectory)
Bandcamp (limited, but at least bands see some money from it)
SoundCloud (weird reputation, though haven’t come back around to it in a good 10 years)
Tidal maybe? Would love to hear some recommendations.
Edit: I neglected to mention why I don’t like the messaging feature. I’ve never used it, yet with a few of my friends there are already dozens of song exchanges in the thread. It’s clear that spotify has been using user-specific links for a while now to track who sends what to who. That’s a pretty clear anti-feature for me, and is enough to make me jump ship.
You must log in or # to comment.
Buying and ripping CDs is my way to go. Completely without social media features.
The social aspect is talking to the cashier.
They said social media.
Well that’s the CD
What even…
That’s so much effort and clutter when you can just download MP3s or FLACs from the web.
Indeed, with services like bandcamp, Beatport and Trax source, you can download load MP4, WAV and many more.
I was thinking more getting into OPH or RED or using SLSK, but whatever you like to do!
I can guess the application for the last of those but what are the first two?
Orpheus and REDacted! Both private trackers.
Ahhh, lol guess that’s why I didn’t recognize them. I don’t have any contavts to get in to private trackers. They ever do open signups?
I believe OPH has signups sometimes, but I’m not sure. RED is interview only, but it’s not too tough to get into!
Bandcamp because you discover music since albums are so cheap.
Qobuz is good IMHO. I’ve heard good things about Tidal too.
I left Spotify for TIDAL a couple months ago. No complaints here!
Seconding Qobuz. Feels a lot like the best of all of them. Streaming, massive library that captured most of my existing Spotify saved, and I can actually buy music to keep as well when I want an album
big fan of qobuz, the only reason i ever dabbled in spotify was to make sharing links easy
I’m so glad I still just buy and maintain my own local music library.
Same, but I still want some form of a recommendation engine. I also want to discover new music.
I do use Spotify for that as I have a family plan for the family, I have also tried Apple Music. Spotify I tried to seed only with the newest stuff I listen to and Apple Music knows most of what I already listen fo.
Both can work but they are both a lot of work before I come up with something I really want to buy. It’s hard to guide them to more obscure stuff, even if you explicitly only train them on that kinda stuff.
I tend to have better luck just with being on subreddits for specific types of music or discussing music with friends. The quality to obscurity ratio can be quite high if a real genre expert shows up and gives a brain dump. Last.fm can be quite useful too.
I’m not sure what kind of music you are into, but if you just make playlists that you would want your kids to listen to, then other kids might get to listen to then anyways. And if you’re kids Hsieh to find them what a gift you will have given them.
I say this as someone who’s musical tastes is knowingly because of my oldest brother. And while I no longer find new music very often because of my brother, I have found a couple other people that now let me introduce new music to my oldest brother, but also I would not have connected with them without my big bro.
Yeah I introduce new music to my kids by playing it in the car. For me Spotify playlists are the same amount of work as just letting the recommendation engine throw stuff at me, I have to go through a lot of stuff to find something I like and then often it’s just one solitary song whereas I like to buy whole albums. I’m not so into one hit wonders.
Can always discover using YouTube Music with an ad blocker. Then add what you like to you local collection. Or use something like last.fm to track everything you listen to, no matter the platform, and get recommendations that way
Have you tried ListenBrainz?
I have ListenBrainz hooked up to my Navidrome server. Haven’t used it much though, find it a bit confusing.
Spotify has been on the way to ruin for a while already. The UI is partly Tiktokified/Instagramified.
Bandcamp + Yar har fiddle dee dee + Jellyfin or Plex.
For music something like Navidrome is much better, IMO. But you could easily host it in addition to the former two, not instead.
Oh, and you can combine the subscription to Tidal with yar har by umm… permanently caching the songs offline by means of 3rd party tools. It might seem pointless at first glance, but having the music stored on your server ensures you’ll keep having it, while you still can spontaneously explore new stuff on Tidal.
I’d steer away from Plex. Their devs have clearly been headed in the wrong direction. Enshittification inbound.
Obligatory I miss what.cd 🥲
RIP WCD
I’m on some new alternatives and they’re good, but WCD was unbeatable.
I’m still of the mind that what got taken out because it was starting to support artists better than their labels / streaming platforms did. Losing it was a catastrophic blow to music preservation.
Until jellyfin isn’t garbage, and has basic functionality like using a remote compatible interface that’s going to be a no dawg. My lifetime membership has been worth its weight in gold.
I feel you on the interface - genuinely. I also got the lifetime… But honestly they are becoming more and more “disconnected” from their roots. The latest ui changes would embarrass a first year art student and make a ui/ux developer weep. As a developer it’s infuriating watching the decisions these people make.
Kodi using the plugin to sync your jellyfin library. Works a treat.
If we are talking mobile, I use Finamp for playing music from Jellyfin and it does the job.
Come to think of it, I don’t use any of the official jellyfin apps, there are plenty of options because it’s all open.
I recently cancelled spotify and switched to a selfhosted navidrome server to stream my personal music collection.
I’ve done the same thing. Works real nice. Using Symfonium on my Android phone
Tidal is great as far as streaming services go in general.
I hear people saying Tidal is unethical because of where its finding is coming from, and the ties its investors have.
Qobuz seems to be the shit as the next alternative.
Hm, I watched Fantanos streaming service tierlist and from what I’ve seen, they seem to be on the better side businesswise. And I do like the product much more than Spotify nowadays, but I’m one of those weird people that listen to whole albums and not to algotorial playlists to study/relax/makeyourtaxes to.
Fantanos streaming service tierlist
I’ll have to check that out. 👍
I’m one of those weird people that listen to whole albums
Same, bro. Me too. ❤️🎶
I’m using Qobuz for music streaming. It’s alright.
Last time I checked they pay artists more than the competition, they curate playlists and editorial content rather than pushing AI left and right, and my experience is generally good.
Minus points for lacking API and native Linux client. On desktop Linux the web app works well.
Deezer is my streamer of choice, nearly identical with artists, OK discovery. Premium includes high def and you can currently stream to multiple devices, like, say, play on sonos for the Kids and listen to yourself without one device stopping
You can also rip music files from deezer into .flac
Its funny how people are still using Spotify when other services exist. But yea people, complain about Spotify and it’s features.
Edit: if you don’t like something quit it, don’t complain. Companies don’t understand until numbers start dropping.
I went to Spotify from Tidal because Tidal just didn’t have the music I wanted to listen to.
I can’t see myself wording until there’s is a service that just has all music that I’m able to find through Spotify. Sad but true.
Deezer, qobuz, bandcamp and goes on.
Never heard of qobuz thanks, I’ll check it out, the others also don’t have the same selection for me. Had a few months of free Deezer when I bought some noise cancelling headphones and they were okay, but still too many of my playlists (there is a tool I forget the name of they helps move/recreate playlists between services) and entirely too many of my lists had unavailable artists or versions of songs
I really do wish my country would just create a repository of the Arts and then collect money from all the leeches to compensate the artists so we can just enjoy our preferred art without needingd to feed the businesses that crush innovation and artists rights
I went to YouTube music because I found spotify’s library way too limiting
It’s been a few years since, but the wholesale merging of music as a category with the entirety of YouTube really gets in my craw. Like, thanks, but I don’t need or want “8 hours of AI-generated lo-fi chill beats for work and studying by xXx-alphachad69420-xXx” showing up when I’m looking for legitimate art to listen to.
That doesn’t seem to happen to me on the yt music app ever so idk
I looked at it but at the time, Spotify wasn’t as shit as it is today as a company. I just don’t want to give Google my money anymore either.
Sadly it’s my last remaining payment to Google, hard to beat yt music and yt premium in one package when I use both services so heavily.
I get it. We all just need a better alternative. I’m not holding my breath though
I’m content with tidal for now. I mainly listen to music on my desktop, and I like that it’s just music. No podcasts or things I don’t want to see.
Winamp died because the company that acquired it tried to turn it into an everything app.
Winamp died for our sins :(
Misread that as winamp died for our skins.
This as well.
Winamp died because pirating music mostly died. That’s the only reason.
Winamp died because the jump from 2 to 3 (if memory serves) was a profound hit to system resources… Followed by the dev team apparently fucking off on anything that wasn’t optimization (see above for likely reason.)
Add in a dose of music platforms figuring out streaming and you can put the final nail in that coffin.
Honestly, Apple Music is not that bad. Tried to love tidal but the app just really sucks with frequent crashes and terrible ui.
Thus far Apple Music feels like old apple playing the streaming game and I have yet to find enshitified features being added. Even the recommendations are more in line with my expectations, think of artists with new or upcoming releases that the app knows you’ve been listening too.
Ui wise I still miss Spotify, it WAS just better. But it’s going further from that everyday. Apple Music also has flac quality if that interests you and you don’t have to pay extra for it. In terms of paying artists, tidal still takes the crown and apple is second.
Apple Music also has flac quality if that interests you and you don’t have to pay extra for it
Spotify has this now as well and you don’t pay extra for it
But Spotify adds ai features I don’t ask for
Just don’t use the feature. Not everything is screech worthy.
That’s a fair response to the original post. Made an edit to expound.
My problem with it is that I’ve never used Spotify messages, yet there’s already a few threads on my account with dozens of “messages”. My best guess is that the thread tracks unique links that I’ve sent to friends outside of the app and they’ve opened while logged in with their accounts. I don’t like that.
spotify started with more social media feel
