DeGoogle Yourself

Music artists absolutely fucking hate music streaming services! It's too big to not participate, and in a lot of cases, their record label won't let them not do so. But the pay is absolute shit! If you care about tbe artist behind the music, buy their music. If you don't want to have all your music stored on device because it takes too much room, there are self-host options.

Going solely with streaming is actively screwing artists over, especially in the case of Spotify, which pays out to the tune (pun intended) of 0.0001¢ per stream. Even an artist as well known as Weird Al barely makes enough to buy a sandwich from what Spotify pays! Other platforms are better, but not by much. I don't say this to guilt trip; many big names make good money from record deals and will be just fine, while most of us don't make much. Indie artists are the real losers here.

That said, music had gotten cheap! Most of your favorite indie artists will sell FLAC versions of their albums for $10 an album, or $1 a song on Bandcamp, and prices are between $10-20 for major artists on platforms like Qobuz. It might take time to build your library back up, but the average person can make a huge difference here by taking the money you would spend on Spotify or any other platform, and buying your music directly. You'd be paying the artist more than they'd get from you streaming nothing but their album every day all year, eventually you'll be paying less in the long run by not being subbed to a greedy music platform, and you'll get better quality!

Reality check here. If morals or personal philosophy means the most to you, then self hosting is really the only honest choice, assuming you then buy merch from artists. If features and library size are most important then you probably need Spotify. All the other worthwhile options might come with a good USP but they're usually flawed in comparison to Spotify.

Screw AI music, but it is on every platform. Spotify is just a victim of its success in this regard.

Edit: not a fanboi btw, just a dad with a family who likes to use Spotify. I have to pay for YT premium as well so the kids don't get ADs on their stupid iPhones. If the YT music app wasn't so shit I'd dump Spotify and make everyone switch, proving my point.

This figure mentions Spotify on a side note. You must be joking.

I just use OuterTune for YT Music. It works and it is less sus than ReVanced YT Music

Can't ungoogle myself this time. YT music has probably the best catalog of all and it's easily moddable

I tend to wear a special hat that allows me to consume music in any format or device I like.

and then go donate to, or purchase music directly from the artists that I like.

if only deezer didn't have data breaches

This graphic seems to put Spotify in a "less shit" category than the other big players based on national origin or something.

From a quality and fairness perspective Spotify is just as bad. A large list of credible musicians and content creators have detailed the poor compensation, shift towards fake artists and AI filler tracks, and other moves Spotify has made that harm the artists and provide a worse listener experience.

If you want to fairly compensate artists, you'd be better off pirating 100% of your streams using alternate frontends for YT music, then making a list of your top 10-20 artists and buying an album or T-shirt from each of their official websites. They will make a lot better margin on that and its better for their career than any amount of streams you can give as one individual. (Also go to shows when available locally)

Some of these services don't offer themselves in turkey (tidal)

Is there a way to get a list of all the songs I like on spotify for archival purposes? Not the file, just a list. Like a shopping list.

i decided to self host my library in as high of a res I could using Navidrome/subsonic.

I had a FiiO X3 anyway so i already had a FLAC capable player.

in the end, even if i know it's not for everyone. selfhosting is the only way to never lose what u love. so many of my lesser known tracks are just gone on spotify.

A glance at this makes me happy to just keep playing my mp3s.

Which one has the biggest selection and highest quality audio, ad-free for $0/mo?

I use YouTube Music ReVanced, and while the audio quality isn't the highest (because it's YouTube), you can't beat the song selection. Especially when it's free and ad-free.

I'm trying to get most of what I like on CD and then host a jellyfin server

Tidal is owned by Block, the owners of Square, which is the biggest POS vendor in the US. If that’s not big tech I don’t know what is.

spotdl

I switched from Spotify to tidal then deezer and finally landed on qobuz. While the app still has some problems and the music selection is not as massive as on Spotify (but mainly in super niche content), the higher artist pay and amazing soundquality are definitely worth it

Qobuz also does purchaseable music, not just streaming.

Naspers is a South African multinational internet, technology and multimedia holding company headquartered in Cape Town... did you mean Napster...? Did you generate this with AI or something?

Why would the largest music streaming service in the world be in the "other" category and not the "Big Tech Incumbents".

I've been happy with Bandcamp. They got sold recently so their future is uncertain, but I downloaded all the music I bought.

They don't really have an algorithm, but you can see who else purchased something, and they do blog posts about like "what's new in [genre]" that's worth reading. So far as I can tell it's written by real people.

Qobuz rocks!

If you're paying for music, stay away from any music publisher that doesn't give you the option of keeping a DRM-free copy for yourself that can be played back in perpetuity, unconditionally.

I use Anghami myself

There are also Faircamp and Mirlo, if you are looking for even fairer and progressive alternatives.