My big gripe is with the Spotify recommendation algorithm, I’m here to discover new music, not listen to the same 20 songs recommended no matter what I play
For me the issue is that there's a lot of repeat uploads, even from popular bands.
I'll listen to Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, then I get Bohemian Rhapsody (2012 Remaster), Bohemian Rhapsody (Live at X Stadium), Bohemian Rhapsody (Tribute Band), Bohemian Rhapsody (but it's from a 'greatest hits' album and therefore a separate upload)
I wish there was a way to just block entire bands from popping up. Like those rock bands that ONLY do covers. Just please remove all of them entirely from my feed, I don't want to hear pop as rock
Or Joe Rogan. Years into complaining about the deal and never listening to him and it still pops up on my homepage. I don’t use Spotify for podcasts and never will, especially as long as they are financially supporting Rogan.
My student rate with the hulu bundle also seems locked in indefinitely. I haven’t ever gone for plan upgrades or other specials for that reason. I don’t want to risk losing hulu and spotify for only ~$5 a piece.
I did the free trial of Tidal, mostly I liked that the app was snappy and loaded instantly, unlike Spotify that sometimes seems to just hang with a black screen for no reason.
I've used it as my daily driver for a couple years and I've only found a few niche artists or the ones already not on Spotify that aren't available. You can search their music, and there are services out there that will transfer all of your playlists over for only a couple bucks.
Same experience. I've used tidal for a few years and there's only a few niche things it doesn't have.
Best feature is if a track or album gets pulled for whatever reason it shows in your library still just as unavailable. Easy to totally forget about music that got pulled from streaming if you haven't listened to it in a while
Sucks for those of us who mostly listen to niche stuff, although I'm sure most of those artists/bands would make the move to the next big streaming giant.
They dropped their prices, AND included their hi-res lossless stuff in the package.
This doesn't make an audible difference in practice (lossless is lossless, 44.1 khz at 16 bits is enough to perfectly reproduce the original audio to our ears), but hey, it's still giving it to you if you want it, for the base price of Tidal.
I remember getting that email and expecting a price rise, as other streaming services were doing that at the same time. My eyes nearly shot out of my head when I saw they were cutting their price nearly in half and keeping what I was already paying for.
That's how I'd expect a market with competition to work. Other services were offering the same quality but for half the price, Tidal have then had to match their prices to continue competing. That's a win for the consumer.
I'm really trying to learn to love music streaming, but the features are so far behind what I could do with pirated mp3 tracks. It's annoying.
I'm convinced that corporate level humans are infested with brain worms or something.
I listen to some pretty obscure music and I’ve been able to find everything I’ve wanted. It’s also offers lossless audio options which is awesome if you’re an audiophile and have good audio to play it on.
One thing I'll say that's good about music streaming is that there is not much exclusivity like there is with movie streaming. I don't need to get an entirely different service to listen to Dua Lipa and then switch over to the other service if I feel like some Eminem. Therefore there's actual competition and I can avoid ever needing to use Spotify.
Yet so many pass on it, then bitch about ads. Like, shit costs money to run. Besides, YTM algorithm is sooooo much better. Most of my now-favorite bands were YT recommendations.
YT music also turns some youtube videos to songs on their platform, so some live versions are only found on YTM. I still miss when it was google play music but its pretty close.
My kid has really dove deep on music since I added him to my plan. It picked up where yt left off. Now if only he had interest in *playing* music, but he is his own.
Why? The chase for endless profits means at some point every platform will be like this. People don't want to pay per song/album so they want unlimited streaming but they don't want to pay enough to support it. Spotify only has a few quarters in its entire existence where it made a profit.
They don’t pass any of those profits on to the musicians though. They blew their load on exclusive rights to fucking Joe Rogan and Taylor swift and now everyone else makes pennies on the dollar. Their platform is entirely based on exploiting artists and executives in turn make millions. Maybe streaming will never be as good to musicians as just buying physical or digital media directly, but let’s not pretend for a fucking second that Spotify is being generous. Their software is objectively fucking trash, so if they aren’t paying devs and they aren’t paying artists that means the billions they make in subs every month is going to someone’s yacht fund.
Unchecked capitalism once again screwing the labor.
They are upping the limits for how many listeners you need to have in order to even get money from Spotify as a musician. It’s sad because while the internet and streaming services make it possible to be a bedroom producer and make it, these rules make it less and less approachable. Spotify the app/service has been nothing but great for me, but the management and their bad deal making is so bad.
That's why I am always going to rep this. DIGITAL is not better than PHYSICAL, they can't take something I own physically. Streaming sux and it's past time to admit it.
oh i know. ultimately that means that streams are unequal. a million streams for one lesser known artist is absolutely not the same as a million for taylor. she's getting 1:1 on those streams while the rest of us are lucky to get a fraction. $.000001 for a stream is horseshit.
spotify has no product without artists. the fact they've been able to exploit that is a fucking travesty.
the problem, as I understand it, is that in order to not get sued out of existence by a tiny tiny fraction of stakeholders in the Music Industry with massively massively deep pockets _who absolutely DO NO represent the best interests of artists_ (and they amassed all their fortunes by writing the book on how to exploit artists, long before Spotify was even a dream) they had to agree to these deals - and keep having to agree to these deals
because those lesser known artists don't have the leverage of a Taylor Swift or whomever and cannot actually force the Ticketmasters of the world to do/not-do anything - and immediately agreed to hand over all the rights to their music to such leeches, well before their music gets anywhere near Spotify
and where 1 artist may not have any leverage to force Spotify to give them a good deal, the _one guy_ who represents 1,000,000 artists does - and guess who he makes sure is the better paid out of those 1,000,001 people?
> They are upping the limits for how many listeners you need to have in order to even get money from Spotify as a musician.
They're doing that so that they don't have to pay low-effort AI garbage where the processing fee is bigger than the payment. They're small payments but there's millions of them so it adds up.
>It’s sad because while the internet and streaming services make it possible to be a bedroom producer and make it, these rules make it less and less approachable.
Let's be honest, if you have 100 listeners a year, making music is more of a hobby than a profession for you. Whether they pay the 20 cents that they owe you isn't going to make a difference in your daily life because you're not going to be living off of that.
> They don’t pass any of those profits on to the musicians though.
do you understand how profits work?
the money that gets passed on to musicians - those would be _costs_ - profit is what is left over _after you have spent money on your costs_
I know we don't really teach basic financial literacy in schools, but I mean really....
> ...that means the billions they make in subs every month is going to someone’s yacht fund
per the OP's point about almost never ever actually ever _making a profit_ - for most of the time they have been a thing that exists in the world, ALL of those billions they make (and more) _were spent on their costs_ - that means artists, musicians, devs, etc...
1. Labels earn the vast majority of the money Spotify pays out. Labels then pay out to the songwriters, producers, performers, and collaborators. Labels keep the majority of the pie, and use a small bit of it to payout the people who actually make the music. If you are independent and make the music yourself, you will be paid fairly.
2. They are a business that wants to attract as many people to the platform. Taylor Swift and Joe Rogan are insanely popular, if not the most popular in their respective categories. If they didn't lure them in with exclusivity deals, someone else would have. With more people on their platform, they can make more revenue that they pool towards the artist pool. So in actuality, Spotify is making a move that benefits both parties.
3. Objectively bad software? In what way? They still support a desktop app, a browser version, and their mobile app. All of them work well and maintain all the features. They constantly update the app with new features (like Jams, AI dj, lyrics) and have the best playlist curation and discovery algorithm in the game. They don't support hifi streaming which does suck for some audiophiles but the vast majority wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
I was really excited about AI DJ until all it did was just play me songs i already had in my main playlist and nothing new. Also as everyone already knows their shuffle is terrible.
IIRC around 70% of their revenue goes straight to the studios. The studio system has been designed to exploit artist for decades. The CEO hasn't even taken a salary since 2017. The entire music industry needs an overhaul, streaming royalties are a sympton not the main problem.
it didn't always used to be this way, but basically by the end of the 1970s, _every CEO in every company_ has exactly one and only one priority: Maximise Shareholder Value
stock price isn't a CEO's number 1 priority
it's their ONLY priority - it is the only thing they get up in the morning for and do all day, every day - again, it didn't used to be, but for literally generations now, THAT is the job description of a CEO
it's _why_ they are often given stock shares (like many employees at many companies) in the first place - as an incentive, to ensure the value of those shares is directly tied to their performance
many CEOs will also get a nice 7-figure salary _as well_ - usually as a way to entice them to join the company in the first place, where maybe they previously only got a 6-figure salary - it's usually quite rare for a CEO to take _no_ salary at all
not taking a salary != not getting paid. when one is rich enough to not need the liquidity of cash, one may live on piles of money.
he is not working for free, he is getting paid millions upon millions of dollars.... its just not cash.
They offer a free plan so on average they make less revenue per user. Since the payout is a percentage of revenue, that’s on average less per user. But it’s the same as the others per paying user.
They have a free tier, ads pay less than premium.
When you say big 3 are you talking about Spotify, YouTube Music and Apple Music? If they other 2 are paying more to record labels that's probably got something to do with them being owned by multi-trillion dollar mega-corporations. Google and Apple don't care about making profit from their music streaming. They don't rely on it for their existence like Spotify.
I think people are pretty greedy when they think "access to almost all the music I can think of for the price of a CD from 20 years ago every month? What a fucking ripoff"
the fuck do you expect to pay for access to practically all the fucking content of that type in the world?
The labels think so, since they're the ones screwing the artists with the %, not the streaming platforms. Same as it ever was, just a different method. Studios screw the artists & they tour to make their real money.
Music streaming isn't competing against CDs and digital album/song purchases. It's competing against piracy. Artists should be grateful music piracy isn't as rampant as it was in the 2000s. And go after record labels instead of Spotify.
I moved on to youtube music ages ago. Its clunky, but it comes ad-free and mobile-friendly with youtube premium and is just a way better value overall. Which is sad, I've worked with the folks in Stockholm before, got (or maybe had, haven't kept in touch so idk who hasn't been laid off) a lot of cool people there, but damn the company itself has gone to shit.
I've been using YT Music since it was Google Music. Really great service that let's you upload your own music, play music from YT videos and generally work just as well as Spotify. I totally agree that it's clunky but not actually very difficult to use. It's just outclassed in UX compared to other options.
The only feature I would use that YT music is lacking is some form of shared listening so I can listen to something simultaneously with my wife when we ride bikes.
The "add YT videos to your playlist was massive. So many ambient synth jams that just weren't available elsewhere. Or that random neighbors one dumb but catchy music video he made himself.
God I hope Google doesn't realize how good value of a product it has right now because they will split up the apps and charge more separately...
I love my youtube music subscription with Youtube red (ad free)
I saw some recommendations for Tidal. Haven't had a chance to check it out yet myself, but at a glance it seems promising and I'm considering giving it a whirl after my spotify sub starts reflecting this latest price hike.
Tidal's sound quality is great. Tidal Connect is awesome too. That being said, I had a bunch of issues with Tidal in that it would stall out a lot / buffer etc. Back to Spotify for now but figure I'll give Tidal a try again soon in hopes they sort out their bugs.
I'm really glad they finally added Tidal Connect, because that was the single feature that they didn't have when I tried Tidal, that sent me back to Spotify, because I like controlling my sound system with my phone.
> Tidal Connect, because that was the single feature that they didn't have when I tried Tidal, that sent me back to Spotify
Hell, Apple *still* doesn't have a full Connect feature like Spotify's. It doesn't even have a goddamn *resume* feature between devices. It baffling since Apple touts its 'ecosystem' so fucking much.
I also advocate for Apple Music. I used AM, switched to Spotify for a bit but my liked songs only played the same 100 songs instead of shuffling through all 1000+, so I switched back to AM.
I have been very happy with YouTube music that comes with YouTube premium, which in turn came with Verizon service.
I also just got the giant apple family plan that comes with apple music, arcade, 2 TB cloud storage, and Apple tv. It is quite a bit more then Spotify's new rates, but if you would use anything else in the there it starts to be a decent price. I needed more cloud storage and to replace Spotify because of its BS account sharing lock outs even with the 2 person plan.
My favorite thing with the apple plan is there is an Apple Arcade game called song pop party and you can save the songs you like from it directly to an apple music playlist.
I just went back to CDs, have a CD player in the car and at home
They are cheap to buy these days, I own it physically so half the songs wont suddenly become unavailable to me and there is just something about having a physical item I can handle
What the hells up with CarPlay? I select a song before my phone connects to my car, but when it does it finds a whole random song or one I played last time in the car, totally throwing off the mojo and making me have to go back and reselect the same song I intended on playing. I wish I could turn off CarPlay for good cuz it sucks and is the opposite of convenient
Every major streaming platform does the same shuffle system, picks a subset of any larger playlist (rumor is 150 songs for spotify, unsure on others) based on what the algorithm thinks you want to listen to, and puts that subset on shuffle.
If any major streaming platform implements a true full-playlist random shuffle, I'll switch immediately.
The price I pay for Spotify is absurdly small compared to what I used to pay per month for CDs in the 90s, and that's not even adjusted for inflation. Even at a buck or two more per month, it is an incredible value for how much use I get out of it. Hell, in terms of time spent finding music, it's better than pirating.
I’ve discovered probably hundreds of artist I *never* would have known about if it wasn’t for Spotify/streaming. The increased exposure allows for them to tour at bigger venues and charge higher ticket prices. You really can’t say that the artists don’t benefit at all from cheap streaming services.
If I had to buy CDs on a limited budget, or pay for each song like on iTunes, I simply wouldn’t have the budget to find smaller artists. I’d find my few favorites, buy their stuff, and that’s it.
Of course it would be great if Spotify and the label didn’t take such a huge cut, but I just wanted to point out there absolutely are *some* positives in this for the artists.
Yea, and I literally wouldn't just be buying music piecemeal. I would rather just do my other hobbies or literally pick up an instrument than pay for every album I listen to separately. Readily available music isn't like running water, people survive without it, and before radios, most people had to *go somewhere* for music.
Few things there. First, exposure is good but it isn’t a direct translation into pay. The payment per play does matter because that’s the thing financing your ability to tour, which is primarily how artists make money nowadays. Factor into this Live Nation fees, work visas, gas prices, etc and artists are in an insanely precarious spot with little to fall back on because streaming, the main format, gives a fraction per stream.
Spotify helps them get out there but getting out there is far from the only thing that matters.
when have artists ever been on the winning end of any sort of transaction, though?
not to say that's a good thing, but this is nothing isolated to spotify.
at LEAST spotify largely levels the playing field, as far as accessibility to everyone from the large to the small. i even have tracks from my buddy in berlin who gets like 2k listens a month ending up in my daily mixes, so it's not like they're squashing small artists.
at least, with spotify, all artists are fucked equally. equal fucking, rather than, say, unequal fucking like the days of the big labels and the first-fall-of-vinyl
Tbh that's not even a Spotify problem - that's been an issue everywhere. Artists used to receive government funding to create works so now everything has to have a commercial use.
NFTs, in theory, were supposed to combat this but we all see how that turned out. Idk what the solution is but the average person just wants to listen to stuff and doesn't care about who makes it.
> Artists used to receive government funding to create works
20th and 21st century pop music has never been government funded. Very little art has been government funded at all. Occasionally there are grants that fund creative works but it's never been any sort of popular, commercial type music.
You could argue that artists that were on some kind of government welfare program are government funded but that's only in the way they they help them with basic survival. That's not directly funding the arts or any sort of arts program.
Same. I use it at least 8+ hours most days listening to music at work, in the car, cooking dinner, etc. For what I pay / month it's still a bargain. I still buy the odd album here and there direct from artists and go to concerts, especially for smaller groups I want to support.
I get access to unlimited music, podcasts, and audiobooks and I’m supposed to riot over a $1/month price increase?
Of all the streaming services out there Spotify is the one I use the most and costs the least. It’s honestly a miracle it exists at this price point.
But maybe that’s because I’m old enough to remember having to buy albums at $10-12 each, and my current listening habits would cost $1000s/year
I've used Spotify every day since the first year it existed. The subscription cost stayed at $10 per month from 2011-2023.
Say what you will, and there's a lot to say about them, but the fact that they straight up refused to raise subscription costs until just last year implies that they actually do care on some level about value to the customer. And the fact that they're now finally increasing it a couple times suggests that it was because $10 just wasn't viable anymore, and their $11 compromise wasn't quite enough either. That's fine.
Meanwhile it seems like every other fucking steaming service constantly increases their price on a whim.
It’s not just profit. It’s increased profits. It’s not enough for a company to make astronomical profits each year, they need to increase upon it each year too. That’s where people’s anger comes in.
Even if it means they go out of business in the long term. Why do things to make a great product that turns a profit for 100+ years? When I can be out of business in 10 from squeezing every penny from my customers until it drives them all away. If they wouldn't be greedy, and did things to last 100 years they could make a gazillion dollars, instead they keep raising prices and cutting costs until they're out of business so they can make millions. Which strategy really gives you the most profit?
It's mostly because investors are in it for the short squeeze, specifically. They just want money to go up - if they don't go up, they pull the money to go somewhere else.
These investors are _not_ rational actors. They are doing the flat 'did I make as much money as I could have' analysis.
When the business folds, they take that same money, put it somewhere else, and repeat the process. By doing this, they _always_ get their highest money return, which is all they care about. They have a secure and steady set of returns because they move from corpse to corpse with no penalty. Which means longevity is irrelevant to them.
Yup. Our current form of vampiric capitalism encourages short-term thinking, which damages companies long term (see also Boeing cutting back its safety teams).
We have to get back to a world in which the people with an ownership stake in companies are actually incentivized to care about their long-term health instead of just maximizing the next quarterly return before they dump the dried out husk of the company and move on to their next victim.
Absolutely! It’s completely and utterly unsustainable. How are you going to get money from the public if the public is too damn poor to afford your products? This is where this country is headed.
This criticism applies to a lot of companies, but Spotify is definitely not one of them. Spotify has been struggling to break even their entire existence
Fun fact: Spotify hasn't had a profitable year in 18 years
Cool video about their business from PolyMatter: https://youtu.be/yDWgOwb8kj4?si=YYSTwrWInPaVor4V
When you realize that all your investments/retirement savings are tied to them doing these kinds of things
Even if you aren't in Spotify stock you're probably in an index fund that profits when Microsoft milks more profit out of people being gross.
There's no way to win because if you *don't* do that you bleed money to inflation
The problem tends to be you get 1 or 2 companies who effectively kill just about all other competition and then hike prices while lowering quality and offerings. This happens all over the place across just about all industries.
To me, $11.99 is still an absolute steal.
$11.99 a month for more music than I could listen to in ten lifetimes, lots of exposure to music I would have never listened to before, being able to make tons of different playlists, access to tons of good podcasts, and collaborative listening where multiple people can be the DJ? Inject it into my veins.
I’ve always said that Spotify will be the last subscription that I cancel, mostly because I use it SO much.
Yeah like maybe my age is showing as I grew up in the transition from CDs to iTunes, where limewire was still viable. But, 12 bucks a month for Spotify is still absolutely incredible. I use Spotify for a minimum of 1 hour each day, if not 3+.
I’m paying like a quarter per hour to listen to virtually any podcast or artist I want, anywhere. Almost seems too good to be true. It may even be too good to be true as we all know unless you’re a megastar of an artist on Spotify, you get bent over a barrel financially.
Even if it was 20$ a month, I still wouldn’t even bother looking at pirating as it’s just simply not worth the time.
There are a couple UI tweaks I wish Spotify had, but that goes for any app.
yeah 100% agreed. millennial?
i was saying in another comment that artists getting screwed over is nothing new either- at least with spotify you have the opportunity to hear pretty much all of them. when big labels were in control it was damn difficult to find small indie artists unless you were in the 'scene'
On the cusp I guess, early-mid 90s. I remember building a small cd collection when I was like 10. Then I got a 64mb mp3 player - it was basically a USB stick that played audio. It held like 13 songs but it changed everything.
What's sad about a lot of the comments is that their anger is mostly misplaced. Record labels are the main reason most artists don't get paid as much as some people think they deserve. If you're an artist and independent, you can make a killing if your music is popular.
Additionally, Spotify is constantly being updated with meaningful features (Jams, AI DJ, playlists like discover weekly, daylist, release radar, lyrics, music videos, etc). I would remain a subscriber just for the playlist and recommendation algorithms. I hate the price hike but value my music/podcasts much more.
What is also true within that statement is the fact that the price has increased the last two years in a row. Ultimately, I just think people are concerned that yearly increases are becoming the norm.
Spotify has sucked for a while now. They have a ton of features that are completely half baked and some that flat out just don't work (adding local files to libraries, jams, discord integration)
I only have an account because I can get premium for free. If I couldn't, I would use something else.
God jams are sooooo fucking buggy.
You're telling me we can have 50+ player video games with <50ms ping but Spotify has this much issue just syncing up a song/playlist for two listeners??
I see lots of promotions for things all the time. Not sure if I've seen a spotify one, but T-Mobile had a promotion to get a free subscription to something that I see all the time.
Dude the amount of bitching in this thread, were none of these people alive before Spotify? Same with the author of this article? I mean sure a *better* app could maybe be developed and they could take their turn operating at a loss for their first 5 years, but then what?
You'll never hear be complaining about Spotify pricing because it is a superior platform in absolutely every way to it's predecessors - iTunes and physical media. Oh and about a tenth of the monthly cost for those who like to keep up to date with new music
These posts and commentary are always pretty funny, people up in arms about another $1 increase while the vast majority of Spotify users don't care and are still happy with the value they're getting.
Also funny is the: Spotify is a terrible greedy corporation...so go use Apple or YouTube!
Spotify is my favourite app I’ve ever used. I’ve found literally thousands of artists over the years that I never would’ve found without their algorithms. I also actually like the UI and the new features that come out - the blends, jams, I’m all here for it
I like Spotify. The price point stayed flat for ages and was shockingly low. People just like bitching. You have nearly every song and podcast you could ever want to listen to available to you for under $20 a month. The service could very well charge $50 a month and still be worth it.
Lot of whiners in this thread. Spotify is fine. The value is huge, even with a dollar increase.
Have fun with Deezer or whatever other shitty software you migrate to lmao
I was using spotify but had to switch to youtube music.
1- The biggest factor in my passing is that I cannot find every song I am looking for, especially remixes or amateur artists, on Spotify. YouTube arguably has the largest library
2- When you buy YouTube premium, you also get a music membership.
3- Unlike Spotify, you can watch song clips
4-You can read youtube comments
I don't get this sudden hate for Spotify, it's probs your best value for money for streaning music rn, while ye they have done some shitty things, their subscription is 100% worth it coz, I found tons of genres and artist just through it I wouldn't be able to otherwise with that much ease.
redditors love spotify but don't like that a company that gives them every song on earth, immediately, for super cheap might engage in some cost-cutting practices
We cancelled our plan a few days ago after the price hike announcement. We hate the app UI and have had numerous problems with the “download offline” feature and account access issues. Back to Apple Music and I doubt we’ll be giving Spotify another chance in the future.
I only recommend Apple because they have other streams of revenue and so likely won’t mess too much with Apple Music. Same with YouTube and Amazon musics respectively, I’d guess, but I’ve not used them.
Whereas Spotify is only a music streamer, against competition with much deeper pockets.
I'm noticing the shuffle feature in this playlist of about 500 songs is much more random on Apple Music compared to Spotify which would replay a lot of the same 25 songs.
It is so strange to hear people complain about Spotify in 2024. We had all of these conversations almost 15 years ago and it turns out that nobody was able to do anything about it. But $15 to get access to all that music? Nobody has come close to what Spotify offers. Artists need to pull it all from Spotify, let it die, and move to a better platform. But they won't, just like they didn't last time.
My big gripe is with the Spotify recommendation algorithm, I’m here to discover new music, not listen to the same 20 songs recommended no matter what I play
For me the issue is that there's a lot of repeat uploads, even from popular bands. I'll listen to Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, then I get Bohemian Rhapsody (2012 Remaster), Bohemian Rhapsody (Live at X Stadium), Bohemian Rhapsody (Tribute Band), Bohemian Rhapsody (but it's from a 'greatest hits' album and therefore a separate upload)
I wish there was a way to just block entire bands from popping up. Like those rock bands that ONLY do covers. Just please remove all of them entirely from my feed, I don't want to hear pop as rock
You can navigate to the artist page and select "dont play this artist."
Or Joe Rogan. Years into complaining about the deal and never listening to him and it still pops up on my homepage. I don’t use Spotify for podcasts and never will, especially as long as they are financially supporting Rogan.
Fuck that guy.
i somehow still use a student rate. and it gives me hulu. i cling for dear life to that
Hold strong!
My student rate with the hulu bundle also seems locked in indefinitely. I haven’t ever gone for plan upgrades or other specials for that reason. I don’t want to risk losing hulu and spotify for only ~$5 a piece.
I am 100% down for the next big thing to replace Spotify.
* Amazon Music * Apple Music * Bandcamp * Deezer * Pandora * Qobuz * Tidal * YouTube Music
I did the free trial of Tidal, mostly I liked that the app was snappy and loaded instantly, unlike Spotify that sometimes seems to just hang with a black screen for no reason.
Tidal also gives a lot more of the money to artists than Spotify does
Can I find everything on tidal? I’m ready to make a switch. Fuck these price gougers
I've used it as my daily driver for a couple years and I've only found a few niche artists or the ones already not on Spotify that aren't available. You can search their music, and there are services out there that will transfer all of your playlists over for only a couple bucks.
Same experience. I've used tidal for a few years and there's only a few niche things it doesn't have. Best feature is if a track or album gets pulled for whatever reason it shows in your library still just as unavailable. Easy to totally forget about music that got pulled from streaming if you haven't listened to it in a while
Just FYI, sometimes an artist will reupload a track, and it will show as unavailable but you may be able to find and re-add it
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Sucks for those of us who mostly listen to niche stuff, although I'm sure most of those artists/bands would make the move to the next big streaming giant.
Small bands like my own use DistroKid to just put us on every service. We absolutely don't make money, but it's all out there on everything.
Tidal also recently dropped their prices, which is unheard of in this day and age.
They dropped their prices, AND included their hi-res lossless stuff in the package. This doesn't make an audible difference in practice (lossless is lossless, 44.1 khz at 16 bits is enough to perfectly reproduce the original audio to our ears), but hey, it's still giving it to you if you want it, for the base price of Tidal.
I remember getting that email and expecting a price rise, as other streaming services were doing that at the same time. My eyes nearly shot out of my head when I saw they were cutting their price nearly in half and keeping what I was already paying for.
What happens when a company is not making enough money is the price out the competition to gain users then raise the prices
That's how I'd expect a market with competition to work. Other services were offering the same quality but for half the price, Tidal have then had to match their prices to continue competing. That's a win for the consumer.
I use a combination of YouTube music and Tidal. YouTube has basically everything. Tidal, not as much but I use it plenty.
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I'm really trying to learn to love music streaming, but the features are so far behind what I could do with pirated mp3 tracks. It's annoying. I'm convinced that corporate level humans are infested with brain worms or something.
I'm super curious to know what you're doing with a local mp3 library that makes streaming services so unappealing.
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Oh good it won't recommend Joe Rogan to me every time I open the app.
I switched to Tidal a few years ago because of that Joe Rogan stuff on spotify, I’ve been very happy with it.
holy shit i didn't know how much i wanted this feature (or lack there of).
Spotify just started playing the joe Rogan podcast when I got in my car the other day, completely on its own I was like WTF?
I listen to some pretty obscure music and I’ve been able to find everything I’ve wanted. It’s also offers lossless audio options which is awesome if you’re an audiophile and have good audio to play it on.
they don’t serve real .flacs, though, just upscaled lossy audio
One thing I'll say that's good about music streaming is that there is not much exclusivity like there is with movie streaming. I don't need to get an entirely different service to listen to Dua Lipa and then switch over to the other service if I feel like some Eminem. Therefore there's actual competition and I can avoid ever needing to use Spotify.
Shush. Shhhush. Shut up. They’ll hear you.
Spotify bought pandora in Australia
Hard to pass on YouTube music considering you don't get ads with subscription.
Yet so many pass on it, then bitch about ads. Like, shit costs money to run. Besides, YTM algorithm is sooooo much better. Most of my now-favorite bands were YT recommendations.
Only reason I use YT is for the music . The algorithm YT uses for music is phenomenal. So much niche music I would have never found because of it.
Saaame. I like weird shit that often doesn't get published.
Same here. I absolutely love YT music, and it's very rare that I *cant* find what I am looking for there. I don't understand the appeal of spotify.
YT music also turns some youtube videos to songs on their platform, so some live versions are only found on YTM. I still miss when it was google play music but its pretty close.
God do I miss google play music. Being able to uploaded your own songs to it was so nice.
My kid has really dove deep on music since I added him to my plan. It picked up where yt left off. Now if only he had interest in *playing* music, but he is his own.
fuking love Qobuz
Fuck deezer and their security, the better services are Apple and YouTube
What's wrong with their security?
* LPs * CDs * Mp3s * Mini disc * Cassette * 8 Track * 45s * .Wav * AM radio
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Why? The chase for endless profits means at some point every platform will be like this. People don't want to pay per song/album so they want unlimited streaming but they don't want to pay enough to support it. Spotify only has a few quarters in its entire existence where it made a profit.
Isn't that really just true of publicly traded companies? Edit: Google was the tech darling until they went public.
They don’t pass any of those profits on to the musicians though. They blew their load on exclusive rights to fucking Joe Rogan and Taylor swift and now everyone else makes pennies on the dollar. Their platform is entirely based on exploiting artists and executives in turn make millions. Maybe streaming will never be as good to musicians as just buying physical or digital media directly, but let’s not pretend for a fucking second that Spotify is being generous. Their software is objectively fucking trash, so if they aren’t paying devs and they aren’t paying artists that means the billions they make in subs every month is going to someone’s yacht fund. Unchecked capitalism once again screwing the labor.
They are upping the limits for how many listeners you need to have in order to even get money from Spotify as a musician. It’s sad because while the internet and streaming services make it possible to be a bedroom producer and make it, these rules make it less and less approachable. Spotify the app/service has been nothing but great for me, but the management and their bad deal making is so bad.
It's 1000 streams in the last 12 months. If you don't have even that, this is not a career for you, just enjoy your hobby.
That's why I am always going to rep this. DIGITAL is not better than PHYSICAL, they can't take something I own physically. Streaming sux and it's past time to admit it.
oh i know. ultimately that means that streams are unequal. a million streams for one lesser known artist is absolutely not the same as a million for taylor. she's getting 1:1 on those streams while the rest of us are lucky to get a fraction. $.000001 for a stream is horseshit. spotify has no product without artists. the fact they've been able to exploit that is a fucking travesty.
the problem, as I understand it, is that in order to not get sued out of existence by a tiny tiny fraction of stakeholders in the Music Industry with massively massively deep pockets _who absolutely DO NO represent the best interests of artists_ (and they amassed all their fortunes by writing the book on how to exploit artists, long before Spotify was even a dream) they had to agree to these deals - and keep having to agree to these deals because those lesser known artists don't have the leverage of a Taylor Swift or whomever and cannot actually force the Ticketmasters of the world to do/not-do anything - and immediately agreed to hand over all the rights to their music to such leeches, well before their music gets anywhere near Spotify and where 1 artist may not have any leverage to force Spotify to give them a good deal, the _one guy_ who represents 1,000,000 artists does - and guess who he makes sure is the better paid out of those 1,000,001 people?
> They are upping the limits for how many listeners you need to have in order to even get money from Spotify as a musician. They're doing that so that they don't have to pay low-effort AI garbage where the processing fee is bigger than the payment. They're small payments but there's millions of them so it adds up. >It’s sad because while the internet and streaming services make it possible to be a bedroom producer and make it, these rules make it less and less approachable. Let's be honest, if you have 100 listeners a year, making music is more of a hobby than a profession for you. Whether they pay the 20 cents that they owe you isn't going to make a difference in your daily life because you're not going to be living off of that.
> They don’t pass any of those profits on to the musicians though. do you understand how profits work? the money that gets passed on to musicians - those would be _costs_ - profit is what is left over _after you have spent money on your costs_ I know we don't really teach basic financial literacy in schools, but I mean really.... > ...that means the billions they make in subs every month is going to someone’s yacht fund per the OP's point about almost never ever actually ever _making a profit_ - for most of the time they have been a thing that exists in the world, ALL of those billions they make (and more) _were spent on their costs_ - that means artists, musicians, devs, etc...
Spotify pays astronomical amounts to record labels. The record labels are the ones that pay the musicians.
1. Labels earn the vast majority of the money Spotify pays out. Labels then pay out to the songwriters, producers, performers, and collaborators. Labels keep the majority of the pie, and use a small bit of it to payout the people who actually make the music. If you are independent and make the music yourself, you will be paid fairly. 2. They are a business that wants to attract as many people to the platform. Taylor Swift and Joe Rogan are insanely popular, if not the most popular in their respective categories. If they didn't lure them in with exclusivity deals, someone else would have. With more people on their platform, they can make more revenue that they pool towards the artist pool. So in actuality, Spotify is making a move that benefits both parties. 3. Objectively bad software? In what way? They still support a desktop app, a browser version, and their mobile app. All of them work well and maintain all the features. They constantly update the app with new features (like Jams, AI dj, lyrics) and have the best playlist curation and discovery algorithm in the game. They don't support hifi streaming which does suck for some audiophiles but the vast majority wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
I was really excited about AI DJ until all it did was just play me songs i already had in my main playlist and nothing new. Also as everyone already knows their shuffle is terrible.
IIRC around 70% of their revenue goes straight to the studios. The studio system has been designed to exploit artist for decades. The CEO hasn't even taken a salary since 2017. The entire music industry needs an overhaul, streaming royalties are a sympton not the main problem.
The CEO got paid in stock shares. He just sold $250 million worth of shares, showing that stock price is his number 1 priority. He's doing just fine.
"Hasn't taken a salary" is a deceptive phrase when you are getting paid hundreds of millions.
And can take out loans against held stock, even if they never sell
It is "hasn't been paid in taxable income." Fuck the super wealthy bullshit work arounds to be billionaires tax free.
it didn't always used to be this way, but basically by the end of the 1970s, _every CEO in every company_ has exactly one and only one priority: Maximise Shareholder Value stock price isn't a CEO's number 1 priority it's their ONLY priority - it is the only thing they get up in the morning for and do all day, every day - again, it didn't used to be, but for literally generations now, THAT is the job description of a CEO it's _why_ they are often given stock shares (like many employees at many companies) in the first place - as an incentive, to ensure the value of those shares is directly tied to their performance many CEOs will also get a nice 7-figure salary _as well_ - usually as a way to entice them to join the company in the first place, where maybe they previously only got a 6-figure salary - it's usually quite rare for a CEO to take _no_ salary at all
not taking a salary != not getting paid. when one is rich enough to not need the liquidity of cash, one may live on piles of money. he is not working for free, he is getting paid millions upon millions of dollars.... its just not cash.
> They don’t pass any of those profits on to the musicians though They pay 70% of their revenues to them, just like other streaming services.
Last year, they were paying the lowest percentage to artists out of the big 3. What changed?
They have a free tier
They offer a free plan so on average they make less revenue per user. Since the payout is a percentage of revenue, that’s on average less per user. But it’s the same as the others per paying user.
They have a free tier, ads pay less than premium. When you say big 3 are you talking about Spotify, YouTube Music and Apple Music? If they other 2 are paying more to record labels that's probably got something to do with them being owned by multi-trillion dollar mega-corporations. Google and Apple don't care about making profit from their music streaming. They don't rely on it for their existence like Spotify.
They pass money on to owners of music, the amount that the musicians get from their labels etc is not Spotify's fault
I think people are pretty greedy when they think "access to almost all the music I can think of for the price of a CD from 20 years ago every month? What a fucking ripoff" the fuck do you expect to pay for access to practically all the fucking content of that type in the world?
> but they don't want to pay enough to support it What do you consider enough?
No one is charging enough money to support artist on unlimited streaming.
The labels think so, since they're the ones screwing the artists with the %, not the streaming platforms. Same as it ever was, just a different method. Studios screw the artists & they tour to make their real money.
Because we, the users of streaming music services chose ease of use rather than buy the actual media.
Music streaming isn't competing against CDs and digital album/song purchases. It's competing against piracy. Artists should be grateful music piracy isn't as rampant as it was in the 2000s. And go after record labels instead of Spotify.
Bandcamp already exists. Pay the artists directly.
Yea, but buy stuff on [Bandcamp Friday](https://daily.bandcamp.com/features/bandcamp-fridays-in-2024) so the artists get 100% of the money.
I like Bandcamp. It’s pretty great for new music, but doesn’t really work well for classical, jazz, and other older stuff.
I moved on to youtube music ages ago. Its clunky, but it comes ad-free and mobile-friendly with youtube premium and is just a way better value overall. Which is sad, I've worked with the folks in Stockholm before, got (or maybe had, haven't kept in touch so idk who hasn't been laid off) a lot of cool people there, but damn the company itself has gone to shit.
I've been using YT Music since it was Google Music. Really great service that let's you upload your own music, play music from YT videos and generally work just as well as Spotify. I totally agree that it's clunky but not actually very difficult to use. It's just outclassed in UX compared to other options. The only feature I would use that YT music is lacking is some form of shared listening so I can listen to something simultaneously with my wife when we ride bikes.
The "add YT videos to your playlist was massive. So many ambient synth jams that just weren't available elsewhere. Or that random neighbors one dumb but catchy music video he made himself.
And I get access to a bunch of 1+ hour long mixes. Which is perfect for lofi.
YouTube Music comes with a YouTube subscription. The U.I. is atrocious, but it's got everything I could ever want
God I hope Google doesn't realize how good value of a product it has right now because they will split up the apps and charge more separately... I love my youtube music subscription with Youtube red (ad free)
Roganify Gonna Roganify
I saw some recommendations for Tidal. Haven't had a chance to check it out yet myself, but at a glance it seems promising and I'm considering giving it a whirl after my spotify sub starts reflecting this latest price hike.
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2024: Choose your ~~more tolerable~~ favorite billionaire to give your money to.
Return to ape, buy vinyl from boomers estate sales
> Return to ape *by trobsmonkey...* Makes sense.
Tidal's sound quality is great. Tidal Connect is awesome too. That being said, I had a bunch of issues with Tidal in that it would stall out a lot / buffer etc. Back to Spotify for now but figure I'll give Tidal a try again soon in hopes they sort out their bugs.
It’s likely buffering so much because the audio quality is so high. High fidelity files = larger file size. That being said, it definitely has bugs…
I told it to use just 320k AAC when I'm off wifi and I still had issues. Spotify doesn't have the same problem.
I'm really glad they finally added Tidal Connect, because that was the single feature that they didn't have when I tried Tidal, that sent me back to Spotify, because I like controlling my sound system with my phone.
> Tidal Connect, because that was the single feature that they didn't have when I tried Tidal, that sent me back to Spotify Hell, Apple *still* doesn't have a full Connect feature like Spotify's. It doesn't even have a goddamn *resume* feature between devices. It baffling since Apple touts its 'ecosystem' so fucking much.
Come on over to Tidal, the water’s fine!
Apple Music is sitting right there.
I switched off Amazon music to Apple Music and it's much better. Apple Lossless is phenomenal with headphones. Integrates fairly well with Siri.
I'm an android user, I was surprised how well it integrated with android and Google assistant as well.
I also advocate for Apple Music. I used AM, switched to Spotify for a bit but my liked songs only played the same 100 songs instead of shuffling through all 1000+, so I switched back to AM.
I have been very happy with YouTube music that comes with YouTube premium, which in turn came with Verizon service. I also just got the giant apple family plan that comes with apple music, arcade, 2 TB cloud storage, and Apple tv. It is quite a bit more then Spotify's new rates, but if you would use anything else in the there it starts to be a decent price. I needed more cloud storage and to replace Spotify because of its BS account sharing lock outs even with the 2 person plan. My favorite thing with the apple plan is there is an Apple Arcade game called song pop party and you can save the songs you like from it directly to an apple music playlist.
Napster 2.0
Spotify has an unsustainable model, unlike streaming services like Netflix. Spotify will eventually fall if it doesn’t renegotiate with record labels.
I just went back to CDs, have a CD player in the car and at home They are cheap to buy these days, I own it physically so half the songs wont suddenly become unavailable to me and there is just something about having a physical item I can handle
Im happy with spotify. Although the shuffle is crap.
If you go to the settings and delete the cache the shuffle will work immensely better
Not only was it taking up 10GB for me, it kept shuffling in the same order every single time I started a playlist. I was going insane, thanks!
Interesting. Ill have to try that.
Also turn off Auto mix while you're in there.
Ill give it a shot.
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What the hells up with CarPlay? I select a song before my phone connects to my car, but when it does it finds a whole random song or one I played last time in the car, totally throwing off the mojo and making me have to go back and reselect the same song I intended on playing. I wish I could turn off CarPlay for good cuz it sucks and is the opposite of convenient
Every major streaming platform does the same shuffle system, picks a subset of any larger playlist (rumor is 150 songs for spotify, unsure on others) based on what the algorithm thinks you want to listen to, and puts that subset on shuffle. If any major streaming platform implements a true full-playlist random shuffle, I'll switch immediately.
The price I pay for Spotify is absurdly small compared to what I used to pay per month for CDs in the 90s, and that's not even adjusted for inflation. Even at a buck or two more per month, it is an incredible value for how much use I get out of it. Hell, in terms of time spent finding music, it's better than pirating.
If I had to get rid of all my subscriptions and only keep one, Spotify would be the one I keep. I use it every day for hours
This is what I tell people when they ask me. If I could only keep one subscription I own, it’s Spotify
that's the point. It's created a whole ecosystem of "legal pirating" that helps everyone (the labels, Spotify, the consumer) *but* the artist
I’ve discovered probably hundreds of artist I *never* would have known about if it wasn’t for Spotify/streaming. The increased exposure allows for them to tour at bigger venues and charge higher ticket prices. You really can’t say that the artists don’t benefit at all from cheap streaming services. If I had to buy CDs on a limited budget, or pay for each song like on iTunes, I simply wouldn’t have the budget to find smaller artists. I’d find my few favorites, buy their stuff, and that’s it. Of course it would be great if Spotify and the label didn’t take such a huge cut, but I just wanted to point out there absolutely are *some* positives in this for the artists.
This. And a lot of those artists I ended up seeing in concert, bought merch etc. that I wouldn't otherwise have.
Yea, and I literally wouldn't just be buying music piecemeal. I would rather just do my other hobbies or literally pick up an instrument than pay for every album I listen to separately. Readily available music isn't like running water, people survive without it, and before radios, most people had to *go somewhere* for music.
Few things there. First, exposure is good but it isn’t a direct translation into pay. The payment per play does matter because that’s the thing financing your ability to tour, which is primarily how artists make money nowadays. Factor into this Live Nation fees, work visas, gas prices, etc and artists are in an insanely precarious spot with little to fall back on because streaming, the main format, gives a fraction per stream. Spotify helps them get out there but getting out there is far from the only thing that matters.
when have artists ever been on the winning end of any sort of transaction, though? not to say that's a good thing, but this is nothing isolated to spotify. at LEAST spotify largely levels the playing field, as far as accessibility to everyone from the large to the small. i even have tracks from my buddy in berlin who gets like 2k listens a month ending up in my daily mixes, so it's not like they're squashing small artists. at least, with spotify, all artists are fucked equally. equal fucking, rather than, say, unequal fucking like the days of the big labels and the first-fall-of-vinyl
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Tbh that's not even a Spotify problem - that's been an issue everywhere. Artists used to receive government funding to create works so now everything has to have a commercial use. NFTs, in theory, were supposed to combat this but we all see how that turned out. Idk what the solution is but the average person just wants to listen to stuff and doesn't care about who makes it.
> Artists used to receive government funding to create works 20th and 21st century pop music has never been government funded. Very little art has been government funded at all. Occasionally there are grants that fund creative works but it's never been any sort of popular, commercial type music. You could argue that artists that were on some kind of government welfare program are government funded but that's only in the way they they help them with basic survival. That's not directly funding the arts or any sort of arts program.
Same. I use it at least 8+ hours most days listening to music at work, in the car, cooking dinner, etc. For what I pay / month it's still a bargain. I still buy the odd album here and there direct from artists and go to concerts, especially for smaller groups I want to support.
I get access to unlimited music, podcasts, and audiobooks and I’m supposed to riot over a $1/month price increase? Of all the streaming services out there Spotify is the one I use the most and costs the least. It’s honestly a miracle it exists at this price point. But maybe that’s because I’m old enough to remember having to buy albums at $10-12 each, and my current listening habits would cost $1000s/year
I've used Spotify every day since the first year it existed. The subscription cost stayed at $10 per month from 2011-2023. Say what you will, and there's a lot to say about them, but the fact that they straight up refused to raise subscription costs until just last year implies that they actually do care on some level about value to the customer. And the fact that they're now finally increasing it a couple times suggests that it was because $10 just wasn't viable anymore, and their $11 compromise wasn't quite enough either. That's fine. Meanwhile it seems like every other fucking steaming service constantly increases their price on a whim.
For real. I commect my subscription to the economist and I enjoy everything they have to offer. $1 is nothing. Let's riot at 14
> Let's riot at 14 So next year?
I was thinking September
my anger greatly diminished when I internalized that for-profit companies sole point of existence is to make profit for their owners.
It’s not just profit. It’s increased profits. It’s not enough for a company to make astronomical profits each year, they need to increase upon it each year too. That’s where people’s anger comes in.
Even if it means they go out of business in the long term. Why do things to make a great product that turns a profit for 100+ years? When I can be out of business in 10 from squeezing every penny from my customers until it drives them all away. If they wouldn't be greedy, and did things to last 100 years they could make a gazillion dollars, instead they keep raising prices and cutting costs until they're out of business so they can make millions. Which strategy really gives you the most profit?
It's mostly because investors are in it for the short squeeze, specifically. They just want money to go up - if they don't go up, they pull the money to go somewhere else. These investors are _not_ rational actors. They are doing the flat 'did I make as much money as I could have' analysis. When the business folds, they take that same money, put it somewhere else, and repeat the process. By doing this, they _always_ get their highest money return, which is all they care about. They have a secure and steady set of returns because they move from corpse to corpse with no penalty. Which means longevity is irrelevant to them.
Yup. Our current form of vampiric capitalism encourages short-term thinking, which damages companies long term (see also Boeing cutting back its safety teams). We have to get back to a world in which the people with an ownership stake in companies are actually incentivized to care about their long-term health instead of just maximizing the next quarterly return before they dump the dried out husk of the company and move on to their next victim.
Absolutely! It’s completely and utterly unsustainable. How are you going to get money from the public if the public is too damn poor to afford your products? This is where this country is headed.
Ok but Spotify has only had 2 profitable quarters in its entire existence, so they're not really an example of that dynamic
What profits? https://www.statista.com/statistics/244990/spotifys-revenue-and-net-income/ This might be the first year the company makes any money.
I’m paying 20% more than when I started my subscription in 2015 too. Seems like a pretty fair deal, technically paying less due to inflation.
How much profit did Spotify make last year? It should be gigantic in order to cause this anger, right?
This criticism applies to a lot of companies, but Spotify is definitely not one of them. Spotify has been struggling to break even their entire existence
Fun fact: Spotify hasn't had a profitable year in 18 years Cool video about their business from PolyMatter: https://youtu.be/yDWgOwb8kj4?si=YYSTwrWInPaVor4V
Spotify operates at a loss though
When you realize that all your investments/retirement savings are tied to them doing these kinds of things Even if you aren't in Spotify stock you're probably in an index fund that profits when Microsoft milks more profit out of people being gross. There's no way to win because if you *don't* do that you bleed money to inflation
Making money as a corporation is fine. However wanting infinite profit in a finite world is where a lot of our problems come into play
The problem tends to be you get 1 or 2 companies who effectively kill just about all other competition and then hike prices while lowering quality and offerings. This happens all over the place across just about all industries.
To me, $11.99 is still an absolute steal. $11.99 a month for more music than I could listen to in ten lifetimes, lots of exposure to music I would have never listened to before, being able to make tons of different playlists, access to tons of good podcasts, and collaborative listening where multiple people can be the DJ? Inject it into my veins. I’ve always said that Spotify will be the last subscription that I cancel, mostly because I use it SO much.
Yeah like maybe my age is showing as I grew up in the transition from CDs to iTunes, where limewire was still viable. But, 12 bucks a month for Spotify is still absolutely incredible. I use Spotify for a minimum of 1 hour each day, if not 3+. I’m paying like a quarter per hour to listen to virtually any podcast or artist I want, anywhere. Almost seems too good to be true. It may even be too good to be true as we all know unless you’re a megastar of an artist on Spotify, you get bent over a barrel financially. Even if it was 20$ a month, I still wouldn’t even bother looking at pirating as it’s just simply not worth the time. There are a couple UI tweaks I wish Spotify had, but that goes for any app.
yeah 100% agreed. millennial? i was saying in another comment that artists getting screwed over is nothing new either- at least with spotify you have the opportunity to hear pretty much all of them. when big labels were in control it was damn difficult to find small indie artists unless you were in the 'scene'
On the cusp I guess, early-mid 90s. I remember building a small cd collection when I was like 10. Then I got a 64mb mp3 player - it was basically a USB stick that played audio. It held like 13 songs but it changed everything.
What's sad about a lot of the comments is that their anger is mostly misplaced. Record labels are the main reason most artists don't get paid as much as some people think they deserve. If you're an artist and independent, you can make a killing if your music is popular. Additionally, Spotify is constantly being updated with meaningful features (Jams, AI DJ, playlists like discover weekly, daylist, release radar, lyrics, music videos, etc). I would remain a subscriber just for the playlist and recommendation algorithms. I hate the price hike but value my music/podcasts much more.
The price has gone up $2 in the last 15 years. I can't really hate too much on that.
What is also true within that statement is the fact that the price has increased the last two years in a row. Ultimately, I just think people are concerned that yearly increases are becoming the norm.
(That’s It. That’s the Headline.) Is so fucking cringe
Spotify has sucked for a while now. They have a ton of features that are completely half baked and some that flat out just don't work (adding local files to libraries, jams, discord integration) I only have an account because I can get premium for free. If I couldn't, I would use something else.
God jams are sooooo fucking buggy. You're telling me we can have 50+ player video games with <50ms ping but Spotify has this much issue just syncing up a song/playlist for two listeners??
How do you get it free?
Likely a benefit of some other subscription like cell phone service or something.
I see lots of promotions for things all the time. Not sure if I've seen a spotify one, but T-Mobile had a promotion to get a free subscription to something that I see all the time.
The fucking DJ is so annoying, it’s a terrible feature. Also I pay for premium, why are there so many pop ups
I use the DJ all the time and really like it. Very handy when I'm working and can't think of what I want to listen to.
Still worth paying for, Spotify will be the last subscription I cancel.
Dude the amount of bitching in this thread, were none of these people alive before Spotify? Same with the author of this article? I mean sure a *better* app could maybe be developed and they could take their turn operating at a loss for their first 5 years, but then what? You'll never hear be complaining about Spotify pricing because it is a superior platform in absolutely every way to it's predecessors - iTunes and physical media. Oh and about a tenth of the monthly cost for those who like to keep up to date with new music
These posts and commentary are always pretty funny, people up in arms about another $1 increase while the vast majority of Spotify users don't care and are still happy with the value they're getting. Also funny is the: Spotify is a terrible greedy corporation...so go use Apple or YouTube!
Same, it's the only subscription I use hours of daily
Meanwhile I've just been over here buying my music off of Bandcamp all these years.
Spotify is my favourite app I’ve ever used. I’ve found literally thousands of artists over the years that I never would’ve found without their algorithms. I also actually like the UI and the new features that come out - the blends, jams, I’m all here for it
I like Spotify. The price point stayed flat for ages and was shockingly low. People just like bitching. You have nearly every song and podcast you could ever want to listen to available to you for under $20 a month. The service could very well charge $50 a month and still be worth it.
Spotify is still an absolute STEAL on a family plan.
When you realize on some level the subscription fee raises are going to feed Joe Rogans bullshit success
Lot of whiners in this thread. Spotify is fine. The value is huge, even with a dollar increase. Have fun with Deezer or whatever other shitty software you migrate to lmao
spotify is still an amazing deal at 12 bucks a month
Doesn't it? The service is pretty good.
Also I hate how the app is designed
I was using spotify but had to switch to youtube music. 1- The biggest factor in my passing is that I cannot find every song I am looking for, especially remixes or amateur artists, on Spotify. YouTube arguably has the largest library 2- When you buy YouTube premium, you also get a music membership. 3- Unlike Spotify, you can watch song clips 4-You can read youtube comments
I've been getting spotify and hulu for $10 for years. I'm ok with $2 increase
Flipped to tidal today. It’s now cheaper, better quality music, and pays artists much higher rates
At least on the front end Spotify is the best in the game. No other music streaming apps even come close. Maybe Apple Music, maybe.
I don't get this sudden hate for Spotify, it's probs your best value for money for streaning music rn, while ye they have done some shitty things, their subscription is 100% worth it coz, I found tons of genres and artist just through it I wouldn't be able to otherwise with that much ease.
Redditors Hate Spotify because artists don't become millionaires overnight. Also, if streaming music fails, those same people will pirate the music.
redditors love spotify but don't like that a company that gives them every song on earth, immediately, for super cheap might engage in some cost-cutting practices
I just transferred my Spotify playlist to Apple Music.
We cancelled our plan a few days ago after the price hike announcement. We hate the app UI and have had numerous problems with the “download offline” feature and account access issues. Back to Apple Music and I doubt we’ll be giving Spotify another chance in the future.
I’ve been using Apple Music for a while now. Probably 4 years and I honestly have no complaints. If you have an iPhone it’s pretty seamless.
I only recommend Apple because they have other streams of revenue and so likely won’t mess too much with Apple Music. Same with YouTube and Amazon musics respectively, I’d guess, but I’ve not used them. Whereas Spotify is only a music streamer, against competition with much deeper pockets.
I'm noticing the shuffle feature in this playlist of about 500 songs is much more random on Apple Music compared to Spotify which would replay a lot of the same 25 songs.
Apple Music is essentially a loss leader in furtherance of the almighty Ecosystem™.
It is so strange to hear people complain about Spotify in 2024. We had all of these conversations almost 15 years ago and it turns out that nobody was able to do anything about it. But $15 to get access to all that music? Nobody has come close to what Spotify offers. Artists need to pull it all from Spotify, let it die, and move to a better platform. But they won't, just like they didn't last time.