This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
I have got to admit I canned Spotify subs years ago - but how are they managing to grow their subscriber base whn it is now going to be £11.99 in the UK? That is way, way too high for what it offers...
And yet, despite the subscription price or its raise, Spotify still insists on forcing promoted content on your homepage.
spotify lost me as a customer as soon as I learned that they gifted 150k to Trump for his inaugaration party
I use Bandcamp when I want to buy and YouTube with ad blocker for streaming.
Spotify has a become a shit show lately. I don't like that the CEO is supporting a a genocidal state, the platform is full of fake AI artists and playlists. Artists aren't getting paid enough. the prices hikes and the app just feels so bloated with unnecessary bullshit. Because of this, I switched to self hosting my own music server (Navidrome, and Lidarr) and I use the symphonium app o Android. Really happy with that solution
Military defence is expensive
I will cancel it
Just leaving this here from the excellent !PurchaseWithPurpose@lemmy.world 
From that chart Qobuz seems to be the all round best deal. Is there any catch?
I use Qobuz! It works well most the time. And it has a huge library. Some things are not as polished as some of the bigger companies. And there's a lot of Initial setup to get it working..
That said, I would say it's a great option. I do wish it had better continuous play options, as sometimes I listen to a playlist, and then it just stops. But that may be part of the learning curve. I'm not really a big "playlists" guy.. I'd like to start a radio and have it find similar artists (similar to Pandora 12 years ago) But that doesn't really seem to be the way companies are going anymore.
I have several Google mini devices (I know, I know. I'm working on it, but that's a whole other process) and they don't really seem to get along with qobuz all the time.
Overall, I like it, but it still needs work.
anything to sustain the hateful joe roegan podcasts on the platform.
Music costs??
Friendly reminder that your “legally acquired” library of FLAC files never raises its subscription prices!
I will never part from locally stored music. I do, however, would love to have my collection run through a recommendation algorithm for discovering new music.
Yep. Hooray for self hosting!
spotify pays me half a cent per stream, the profit margins for them must be fucking insane. and the music sounds like shit. I'd much rather people pirate it than support these leeches
if you want to support artists you like, buy the music, ideally on bandcamp. if you do have to steam it, Deezer at the very least won't vandalize the audio
What do you think about Qobuz as a musician?
Third one in a little over two years. They say it's to keep up with inflation as if they're a retail store operating on razor thin margins and people accept that. Meanwhile, they're donating to fascist political parties and shafting artists by leveraging loopholes to pay out fewer royalties.
There is a ReVanced version of Spotify, for people who didn't already know. Block ads and get premium features for free: https://revanced.app/
(There's also YT Music ReVanced)
I heard the ReVanced patching stopped working recently. Is that not the case anymore?
Not sure cause I use YT Music ReVanced instead for the larger music selection.
ive been using apple music for years, mainly like how for edm it tends to have highquality recorded live sets for all djs, and they are seperated instead of being one long continuous track, like youll get
They have prices? People are paying? 🤔🏴☠️🦜
Let's say it together: Enshittification
It's been long underway for Spotify; raising prices is just the lastest step.
Fediverse has quite alot of indie musicians. Check out LABR http://labr.online/ or the indie beat https://theindiebeat.fm/ and try some new music and support creatives directly.
Just saying; cancelling Spotify and changing to Qobuz takes five minutes. Sound quality is amazingly better, the curated recommendations are done by human beings that love music, and 'just works' with everything that Spotify does. (For us, anyway.) It's French, rather than Norwegian-American like Tidal is, if you're trying to stop spending money on everything US at the moment, too.
As much I despise Spotify, I'm trying out Qobuz and it's just not really it.
No folder organisation for playlists or albums.
No Linux application.
No lyrics.
No support for smart speakers.
No information linking to artist tours and merch.
No dedicated classical music app.
Generally lacking when it comes to non western artists.
Prides itself on providing high quality music, yet still only has lower quality masters for some artists compared to Apple Music, Tidal, and even Spotify.
I want to love it, like the way it loves and respects the music industry, with it's special magazine etc, but it's just not it.
When I got tired of Spotify's shitty practices, I looked into other streaming services that could compare, and honestly I didn't like any other offerings. So I said fuck it, I'll just download everything and play it locally.
What made the jump easy was a service called Spotidown, I even paid for the ad free version it was so convenient. You literally copy the spotify link for songs and playlists and it let's you download it. There's a couple different services like this, that will make the switch easier.
I'm quite unhappy with spotify. I don't care about the price, but it keeps repeating the same and same music again, and the percentage of crappy AI music is increasing. You can clearly hear it. Their client isn't open source, and it's just a wrapped website. It sucks.
