I pay for Youtube premium as a carry-over from Google Music (back when it was called Youtube Red). I let it run because I enjoy the screen off feature when I'm driving. On my desktop uBlock Origin still blocks 340 scripts/trackers even when logged into Premium. They not only want to eye-rape us with ads, but they want to track the fuck out of us across the web.

I run almost exactly the same thing. Plex running in Proxmox VM with a GPU passthrough, and an OMV instance in Proxmox VM hosting all the data shares. Proxmox also hosts multiple Docker stacks for various instances. This is spread out over multiple bare metal boxes.

An then there are those that swing days and nights who are stuck in perpetual limbo. My sleep schedule sucks.

I just recently set up a reverse proxy with Nginx Reverse Proxy, and Cloudflare. I pointed my domain to my home address with Cloudflare (they have dynamic DNS capability), then set up NRP, to forward traffic by subdomain. The nice thing about the reverse proxy it is I can bind a subdomain to an ip:port on my local network. Like "music.!MYIP!.com" goes to my Navidrome instance "LOCALIP:4553". This allows me to close unnecessary outbound ports.

So did Samsung

I mainly get my purchased music from Qobuz and Bandcamp. If it's older, don't dismiss compact discs, used or new. A lot of times you can get the CD cheaper than the digital download, then just rip it to any format you want.

Maybe something like the Syba Sonic? I know it has both a mic and line inputs, plus a serviceable DAC. I found it on Amazon for $37 USD.

I forgot about TIDAL integration, since I'm not a subscriber. I only subscribe to Spotify for the family account. My three teenagers and my wife would all mutiny if I stopped paying for Spotify. I just now convinced them that Plex is stable enough to use for video. Small victories.

Plex server streaming to Plexamp here. Currently handling around 50k tracks all stored on my NAS no problem. Soundiiz supports Plex, so converting Spotify playlists over to Plex is pretty straight forward, provided you have the songs.

• Plex pulls down it's own metadata, so if you're a tagging freak like me, you'll have to check the "Prefer local metadata" on your Plex server.
• Smart playlists are a little cumbersome. They're actually saved filtered searches. Not intuitive at all.
• No HiRes - if that's your thing. (on iOS, not sure about Android)
• Plexamp has a separate EQ for each bluetooth device on iOS, but it can't differentiate between wired headphones using an adapter.
• It does save music or playlists to the device for offline playback, but they're captured within Plexamp. You can't play those offline tracks in any other app (might be possible in Andorid, but the filenames will be random and idk about metadata). I have not run into an offline download limit, like in the old days.

Eon by Greg Bear. It’s a bit dated as it takes place during the cold war, but it’s an excellent read.

why wouldn’t you want all your audio entertainment in one place?

Because Spotify is known to track and sell your listening habits. It's fine (for me) that they track that I listen to AC/DC right before Ghostly Kisses. Music is music. A person's podcasts can get a lot more personal. Politically, emotionally, and religiously personal. I don't like to be profiled.

I would have fixed the damn API to push ads out to third party apps, with ad revenue sharing. Then implemented a per user API price to enable browsing ad free.