It’s a reasonable increase considering recent inflation, and safe since YouTube just raised their price too. In the long run I would be worried for them since YouTube premium is a much better deal if you don’t care about Spotify’s exclusive podcasts.
I’m about ready to get rid of Spotify. I’ve been catching up on Critical Role Podcast and within the past couple weeks I’m hearing ads randomly in the pidcast that breas immersion. I’m already paying for Premium, why TF am I hearing ads?
I’m not sure…some of the ads seem like they are the basic ads being played by Spotify and then some are done by the cast of the podcast. If they’re baked in, the narrative geniuses are choosing some weird time to put them in!
I came here to say the same thing. I’ve been using it for years and it works perfectly. Unfortunately you can’t download though, but that’s not I would use Spotify for anyway
They don’t even have hi-def or music videos, at least when I was a sub last year. One thing they do have are excellent playlists. I’ve since switched over to Apple Music and just use an app called Song Shift to copy playlists from Spotify right over to Apple Music.
Couldn’t agree more. Too much music on the landing page that I would never listen to. Even their hard rock type playlists are odd because it’ll have some new stuff mixed in with stuff that’s 30-40 years old. They definitely need way better curation and/or algorithms.
Spotify is the last subscription service I still have.
Sailing the high seas for tv/movies is easy for me since I don’t really watch that much anyways. Music tho, is huge for me. And as much as I hate algorithms, Spotify’s has turned me on to a ton of really good new music.
So, I guess I’m asking here, what’s the easiest/most convenient way for an avid music lover to break away from Spotify?
No worries. I was just curious, and can totally understand wanting to get off subcriptions.
I was just curious because we usually get angry when subscriptions increase their price (and often we should), but considering the inflation we’ve had lately, 10.99 in 2023 is way less than 9.99 in 2010.
What would it cost if I was to acquire the music in my library?
What if I wanted to sail the seven seas instead? Where would I get the music from?
As for the algorithm, a lot of the suggestions for new music is probably also available to non-premium users (e.g. “Discover Weekly”) and could be scraped/downloaded from the API.
I believe there could be a rise in demand for a solution to migrate away from these audio walled gardens, especially with the upcoming price hike.
I’m in the music scene for my region, and I pay my share to the artists I enjoy, listen to, go and see live.
But as far as general listening, yea I need a better - more free - way of consuming music. I just don’t know if there exists a service that lets you listen on demand, recommends similar music, and lets you build playlists/queues on demand.
I guess that’s what I’m looking for before cancelling my sub
I don’t mind paying for the music. What I do mind, however, is the kind-of hostage situation that I am in with Spotify. I understand that they have costs that need to be covered. (Though, podcasts - especially exclusive ones - are NOT what I ordered.) I want to be in control of my data, and be able to easily transition to competitors and/or self-hosted solutions.
I guess one of the more difficult things to have “free” is the music that could be of interest to you, but you do not already own it.
I was contemplating to go back to reading album reviews and music news myself, but that seems like a larger time invest.
I use ListenBrainz nowadays as the metadata is so much better at handling edge cases than Last.fm is (e.g. featured artists in the artist tag) and I honestly just use Rate Your Music for recommendations now.
I use both but I found listenbrainz not so great for finding new music. I definitely agree it’s waaaay better at tagging though because people actually clean up the database and it’s easy to contribute yourself too.
If recommendations are what you want, I’d honestly look at getting an account with Rate Your Music if you haven’t already and populating ratings with music you love and hate. Yes, the community can be very snobby and cynical at times and the site is slow-updating, but at the same time I’ve gotten some great recommendations, both from the community and the site’s algorithms, while streaming can be very hit or miss. There’s no app, but at the same time your recommendations aren’t tied to one streaming service, so you can use any service that fits your needs or sail the seas while still getting good recommendations.
RYM has two algorithms to help you find some interesting music, based on finding highly rated music and your taste in genres and descriptors: there’s one that recommends music it thinks you’ll like, and another that’s the opposite of your music taste, to challenge you to get you out your comfort zone. I have found stuff I’ve loved in both. Paid supporters (iirc monthly is £2 while a year is roughly £20 depending on currency conversion) do get access to tweaking the algorithm to fit their needs, as well as visual access to the data that fuels your recommendations, but I don’t mind paying for it over Spotify/AM. Might be worth having a look.
Great interface, uses YouTube Music as backend, no ads. I was seriously tempted to cancel my Tidal subscription and only didn’t because I switch to an iPhone for reasons.
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