Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

Personally, I just pirate the FLAC files from RED, and play them with VLC. Several advantages to this:

• Spotify is owned by a shitty, greedy company with shitty, greedy practices.
• Spotify enforces DRM on almost all its media.
• FLAC files have superior quality as they are lossless
• I can play them offline without a subscription
• Downloads are pretty much instant, as private trackers have insane seeder to leecher ratio

I'm sorry if this isn't the response you're looking for, but as other people have already given recommendations for alternatives, I thought I would just give my 2 cents.

InnerTune uses YouTube music, so far it's been really good. No sign in, no ads, decent quality, and grabs alternative versions like covers and acoustic versions too.

It allows you to download the songs, build a library, create playlists, and you can free listen to related music.

Edit: Corrected typo, it's InnerTune.

I use RiMusic which is Google Music without the adds. You can get it via Fdroid with the IzzyOnDroid repos added. There is also Spotube for all platforms, also available on Fdroid. I haven't had time to try this one out.

Youtube Music ReVanced should be good, it's the legacy of Youtube Music Vanced, which has served me well for years, even after its takedown.

If you like offline music Poweramp on Android is great. Not free tho

auxio for my offline collection (which i've been slowly building so that i don't have to stream anymore)

pipepipe for youtube

Spotube: It's not the greatest UX, but will read your Spotify Playlists and supports offline mode.

To be honest I've never bought into the whole cloud music thing, at the minute I've most of my storage taken up by music and TV on my phone.

I use Neutron music player for music and for video a mix of Stremio and mx player pro.

feishin + navidrome

Navidrome with tempo if you go the self hosted route

I'm on Deezer with a family plan that my family is happy about ; I use Murglar 2 to download the music I am paying for.

I've been using YouTube Music for a long time. I encourage everyoneone to download the Revanced Manager (link here) and mod the original APK (you can download it from anywhere, namely pureApk or uptodown) by yourself. The process is incredibly easy and you can have almost all advantages of premium without paying a penny, like with the modded Spotify APK.

NewPipe on Soundcloud and look for dj sets

Youtube Music Revanced Extended, using NodeJS Builder on PC. Generally the audio on youtube music feels more alive than on spotify for me. I often experience where the same song has a wider stereo field on yt music, means spotify internally modifies the stereo spread in songs. Also yt music allows louder playback, spotify is stuck with standards that I have no sympathy for. I say if a song sounds good then just let it be, don't generalize all songs.

I'm just waiting for a new mod to come out

If you're into metal you should check out rokk-app.com. Kamelot's drummer is involved, and they claim to pay artists much more than the alternatives. You can also select a particular band which will get a direct share of your subscription.

It just came out last week so it's rough around the edges for now, but it might be worth checking how it evolves over time.

I'm still using Airsonic-Advanced. I know there are alternatives like gonic and navidrome. But, eh. I like buy music from Bandcamp or directly from the artist, and then upload it to airsonic. Works nice.

I use Metrolist (YouTube Music client for Android) and would recommend it.

OuterTune

spotube

I have about 500 Gb in my personal library running jellyfin - which I hardly use anymore. I gladly give Tidal $20/month for a family plan, not just for the added value, but because they actually pay for the music, unlike Shitify. The stream quality is even better than about half of my collection. There are other good services and specialty services. Deezer is another. I don't mind helping the artists.