This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Here you can find reviewed, impressive and comprehensive European alternatives for digital products and apps if you wanna break from American (big) tech companies.
Have a look, you'll be impressed...
Yes, absolutely. I'd prefer transition to FOSS/ open source. If the development is by others also better than the billionaire led organizations.
This is a good source, but why the fuck is Spotify listed as a suitable alternative? Spotify is one of THE apps that people are trying to break away from.
I will change immediately when a service distributes my payments to the artists who I’ve listened to. Every service basically pools em up and gives them to Pitbull, Justin Bieber and the blonde singer who dates a football player. Only the share varies a bit, not the model.
have a look at Qobuz. I've heard they have some of the highest payouts to artists. I don't have sources unfortunately :/
Qobuz redistributed royalties due to Labels and Publishers, corresponding to an average amount of US$0.01873 per stream¹ for the fiscal year 2024. In concrete terms, if a track reaches 1,000 plays on Qobuz, this represents US$18.73 paid to these rights holders, who then pay out to the artists, songwriters and composers, according to the terms of their contracts.
https://the-ear.net/news/qobuz-pays-artists-5x-more-to-artists/
Spotify btw fiances a lot of podcaster that helped this actual situation
People incorrectly assume "European alternative" means "better alternative" when sometimes, that's not the case. Privacy needs to be approached with skepticism, no matter what surface-level credential something has.
Things like these might be table stakes, but they should not be the end of your search for an alternative product.
I think you are absolutely right.
Wild guess: Spotify was founded in Europe.
It's now based in the US, and a lot of its revenue goes to alt-right loonies. Renewing their podcast contracts is why you're paying more year after year to stream music.
I like Apple Music because they pay artists more, but I might be a little biased as it came with my phone and computer and I have a family plan with others who enjoy it (and yes, they are family).
The true alternative to streaming anything is using Plex (or something like it) to make your own music streamer, buying all your media (that pays artists more than any streaming platform), and streaming it to yourself that way. It is illegal to rip CDs, DVDs, and Blu-rays in the US, but technically if you own the media it's fine to have it, you just can't have broken the copy protection. Kind of a catch-22. But it costs a lot more as you have to buy everything. If you already have a massive CD collection, it's not as big a deal.
Qobuz,
They are French,
You have all Deezer and Spotify perks,
They pay artists,
Music is often in High Resolution, they have partnerships with Hi-Fi audio brands,
You can reach them if your favorite artist or album is missing.
Just checked out Qobuz and you can even buy the music digitally to download (like bandcamp with the advantage that they are EU-based and seems like more artists are on Qobuz), think I'm going to switch
Qobuz seems amazing. You need a subscription i think but they seem way more ethnic than their counterparts.
You can buy single tracks/albums and download them without a subscription, the subscription is more a Spotify-like thing were you can listen to all songs but can't download them without DRM
Spotify is still registered in Luxembourg with its operational HQ in Stockholm.
I totally agree with you. Especially since they tried to take down Anna's archive...
Anyway, besides that, this remains very instructing.
Call me out of touch all you want. I have big sd cards, and mp3 files. No ads. No subscriptions. No bullshit.
And that is less energy consuming too!!
I am socked by the sheer amont of energy needed by streaming platforms (Spotify and others) but nobody seems to care.
By the way there is a telegram bot that allows you to download anything you want from Spotify. And then you own the files forever... no more connection needed.
You blew my mind twice on your comment.
I'll have to take a look at both. Thanks
👍
I have a bunch of TBs in a NAS and jellyfin/navidrome/audiobookshelf. Because I'm excessive and like making my life harder.
No ads, no subscriptions, just self-inflicted bullshit.
Kobuz is my suggestion.
Man, I remember having to use a VPN to sign up for Spotify when it launched, because it was founded in and available to the UK only.
I’m test driving Deezer as Spotify alternative.
Looks really promising. You can even import your Spotify playlists and music to Deezer.
Call me cynical, but I don't expect these to be better alternatives for long. The main issue lies with the fact that these services are both centralized and profit-motivated, and I don't anticipate that the EU's privacy laws, though they are better than those in the US, will be much protection once even one of these competitors gets big enough to have a say in politics. Self-hosted, open-source apps are a far better solution than relying on yet another company that has full control of the software, especially with the barrier to entry for those apps getting smaller with each passing day.
There are multiple projects available that will let you turn even a mediocre extra PC into a platform for self-hosted apps with not a lot of effort. Yunohost and CasaOS are two that come to mind, but other options exist. Hell, even just running Nextcloud is probably enough to cover most people's SaaS needs, though it can require a bit more work than the other two that I mentioned.
You're too cynical. Yes, EU is not immune to lobbying but it's way better at regulating companies than US is. Those alternatives are clearly better now so not switching because "they may not be as good in the future" is not a valid reason to keep using US tech.
This is a good source, but why the fuck is Spotify listed as a suitable alternative? Spotify is one of THE apps that people are trying to break away from.
Qobuz has been the better alternative. From France, pays artists considerably better, has HiRes as standard. Human curated content and also has a DRM free digital store to actually buy the music. (and on one of their streaming tiers gets you a discount on purchases).
I have really been enjoying it as it works on my dedicated Digital Music Player so if there is something I want to listen, but don't own there is the option, and I still get the convenience of using it on the TV with the nice sound system.
