I killed my Spotify account when they started shoveling millions of dollars at Joe Rogan, and everything they've done since then only confirms I made the right call.
Me too. Migrating to Tidal was extremely easy. They even imported my Spotify playlists and follows. And they are cheaper. Fuck Spotify.
Actually it wasn't easy, they rely on a third party service that charges the customer instead of Tidal footing that bill for you. I thought that was a bit tacky.
I may have to try that again: at the time I got too many complaints from my kids. Now Spotify hugely increased prices, probably to pay for its attempt to collect Podcasts that I’m not interested in.
Unfortunately I agreed with my kids: other music services just don’t works as well
Tidal has been pretty good for me over the past 5 years. I don't know what your criteria are, but for me it's something like 1) is the catalog big enough to offer 90% of what I'm looking for and 2) no advertising if I'm paying for the service. It ticks those boxes. I imagine it's only a matter of time until they introduce the bullshit tier where you're paying and being advertised to, but for now you get what you pay for.
My teens like it
I can predictably ask for either an artist or “like an artist” and get hours of what I asked for. (Apple just segued into random stuff so I always had to get it back on track. Someone I want listen to specifically someone do if I ask for that I expect to get that)
for that I expect to get that)
Only thing I can say on 3 is the interface is pretty not bad. I've never quite liked it, but it has never really gotten in the way. I only recently started trying the track/artist mix. Also can say it's okay. I've actually found a few gems over a few weeks of usage, but at the same time I have found times where it's time to skip to the next track, though this is mostly due to personal taste and not because it's throwing some really out of character into the playlist.
This one is actually out of their hands. Lyrics aren't free sadly and they have to pay for API calls. It's fucking stupid but the labels are the ones at fault here.
Fuck Spotify nonetheless.
Unless there's some agreement / licensing thing prohibiting it, and considering that lyrics don't change, they should be able to do some caching for a total of 1 API call per song
You and I can do that but they're not just caching they're redistributing which requires royalties
Displaying written lyrics does not require a royalty payment to anyone.
It does unless they agree to let you redistribute the lyrics without one. Lyrics are copyrighted.
https://www.musicconnection.com/copyright-issues-scriped-entertainment-song-lyrics/
https://www.thelaw.com/law/are-song-titles-lyrics-protected-by-copyright-or-trademark-law.317/
You may get lucky and have a band that doesn't care or won't notice your operation, but Spotify has music from the big labels and they do care and they will notice.
Surely the cost of lyrics (regardless of fetching API or royalties with caching) are miniscule compared to the other costs.
I assume they are not paying for the lyrics, but for the access to the api. The lyrics are also timed to the music and the service they use might do that for them. So, like you say, serving lyrics data costs very little, but that is not what they pay for.
And to add, I don’t really know anything about how this works behind the scenes.
Not sure why you got downvoted.. storing text isn’t a lot of data, they can easily do it once per song and wrap it up.
... Why would the lyrics service allow that?
The issue isn't the storage, it's the copyright holders
It is not a copyright infringement to display lyrics.
It very much is and Spotify would definitely get sued if they weren't paying. I got a cease and desist for an app I made about a decade ago for this very thing
damn thats crazy, i'm out here with my 300GB collection of music that i own and control and i can just, add lyrics to shit if i want to.
I don't because i'm not deaf and i don't really care for lyrics all that much, but it's also just, automated.
Could you add wrong lyrics to songs for me...
i could... Or i could not.
Hmmm, a question of the ages for sure.
I'm a bit confused. Do deaf people listen to music? Lyrics are generally freely available via Google.
Edit: see reply for a good explanation.
Deafness covers a broad spectrum of hearing difficulty, not just completely deaf. Most people that identify as deaf still have some hearing. I always forget that and had the same question as you until I read a comment further down.
It's likely that the person isn't fully deaf and so can still hear some music, but deaf enough that they can't understand the lyrics. Having the ability to view the lyrics in real time is handy rather than having to search them up all the time. Spotify also shows what lyric is currently being sung in real time, whereas you can't get that with a Google search.
Aha, I didn't know that. Thanks for the explanation! I'm going to edit my comment above to point to it.
I don't get it. They are complaning that their limited free plan is limited?
They're complaining that one of the things the limited free plan takes away is something they were using to accommodate their disability.
They're complaining that the limited, free-tier plan is worse than it used to be. And really, for no good reason.
When EA releases Star Wars 2: A Sense Of Pride And Accomplishment, we complain about how stupid that is, do we not?
for no good reason
Hosting costs a lot of money
And they run ads. The free-tier is not actually free, you know.
The 1 or 2 kB of lyrics are a few orders of magnitude smaller than the song being streamed.
The album art probably takes up more space than the lyrics.
So, album art should also be a paid feature?
Album art would make way more sense as a paid feature than lyrics, considering it's a largely cosmetic improvement.
How does it make more sense that “cosmetic” features are in the paid-tier? Would it not be the other way around?
I guess deaf people aren't allowed to enjoy music like the rest of y'all.
I'm so sorry but this is the absolute funniest shit I have ever read. 😂
Being deaf is a spectrum. There are plenty of people who still have some hearing, and are “hard of hearing”. There’s deaf people who can enjoy music through the use of hearing aids as well. There’s also totally deaf people who can enjoy music because of the vibrations. There’s people whose hearing is just bad enough that they don’t understand what anyone is saying without subtitles/lyrics. Deaf in only one ear, etc.
Naming and shaming all "recurring spending models" where a one-time fee (or none at all) would be appropriate and logical.
Expect use of strong language.
Follow the basic rules of lemmy.world and common sense, and try to have fun if possible.
No flamewars or attacking other users, unless they're spineless corporate shills.
Note that not all subscriptions are awful. Supporting your favorite ~~camgirl~~ creator or Lemmy server on Patreon is fine. An airbag with subscription is irl Idiocracy-level dystopian bullshit.
New community rule: Shilling for cunty corporations, their subscriptions and other anti-customer practices may result in a 1-day ban. It's so you can think about what it's like when someone can randomly decide what you can and can't use, based on some arbitrary rules. Oh what, you didn't read this fine print? You should read what you're agreeing to.
==========
Some other groovy communities for those who wish to own their products, their data and their life:
Some other useful links:
Louis Rossman's YouTube channel
Look at content hosted at Big Tech without most of the nonsense:
