I’ve never used the free tier on Spotify and I don’t understand how anyone can. The ads alone would make me throw off my headset in disgust. So yeah, not going to affect me, and I do enjoy reading the lyrics a lot.
That said, I am experimenting with swapping over to Apple Music because I feel Spotify has become too expensive.
The ads alone would make me throw off my headset in disgust.
For a mobile, there is a modded apk,I’ve never heard ads there. For a PC, web player in Firefox with uBlock Origin, there are no ads at all there. The same goes for Tidal, I’ve never paid for these apps.
https://lemmy.ml/comment/3223099 For both PC and Android.
- spotx - well, I tried, but honestly, I don’t need one more app especially when everything works in the browser. Plus, I prefer portable setups and there’s no portable version of spotx, so, it’s pretty useless for me.
- It’s explicitly said on the Spowlo GitHub page that they use YouTube for downloading, so, there’s no way to get 320 kbps tracks or flacs. Instead, I’d recommend to try some Qobuz/Deezer-based solutions, there are quite a few of them there. Or use slavart or something like this, or good old soulseek, there’s even an Android client for it.
Doesn’t solve the offline mode/taking a 13 hour flight use case, unfortunately.
I use an iPhone though and I’d prefer not to use YouTube for music, or anything, really.
Oh man, you shouldn’t be using iphone in the first place, the most useless device piracy-wise.
The ads aren’t even for anything. It was just really patronising ads for Spotify Premium.
Their business model is genuinely to just annoy you into paying.
With xManager, the free tier comes quite close to premium. No ads, play whatever music you like. The only issues are lower sound quality & no downloads, which are really non-issues since you can just find other sources to download the music from, at flac quality
I recently flipped to apple music and apart from seeing a few songs missing on albums i don’t really listen to anyway, it’s only been an improvement. the lossless audio is quite nice
Do the people who wrote those lyrics get a cut of Spotify gatekeeping them?
hahahahaha spotify and paying someone lol
Spotify is not profitable right now; their current revenue doesn’t come anywhere close to covering their costs. The only reason they’re able to survive is investors holding on to the belief that, some day, it’ll be possible to actually make the numbers work.
The majority of their investors are record labels now, so there’s also an incentive to prevent competing streamers from taking Spotify’s position
Spotify purchases their lyrics from Musixmatch
Musixmatch has a free, public database where lyrics are displayed. To contribute to the database, users can sign up and contribute lyrics, synchronizations, translations, and structuring to get points and move up levels. Musixmatch’s points have no redeemable value, but are instead a marker of a particular user’s contributions.
So no?
You as an individual can go access the public free database. Spotify as a corporation is a customer of musixmatch.
https://about.musixmatch.com/business/customer-stories/Spotify
I’m not sure what exactly you’re trying to say?
Spotify is receiving money for something they did not create.
Neither the writers of the lyrics nor the fans who transcribed them get a cut.
That is fucked up.
It is fucked up that the fans who are transcribing do not get a cut, but it’s not like they were misled to believe they would make a cut before they started doing it. The people doing that are doing it out of a passion for the music.
I’m not saying they shouldn’t be paid of course they should, if it was up to me I’d say make them all rich. I just think it’s a stretch to imply that Spotify is stealing anything here
I like stealing. According to my belief system theft is good.
It’s the fact Spotify is charging users for something stolen is what I think is fucked.
Something stolen should be freely shared.
Spotify is receiving money for something they did not create.
Spotify are paying musixmatch for the lyrics.
Spotify are paying musixmatch for the lyrics.
musixmatch didn’t create the content either.
Irrelevant. It’s up to musixmatch to pay the creators or supplier of their content, not Spotify.
I just love watching everyone freak out about Spotify’s shitty business practices while I’m casually looping YouTube videos with an adblocker.
YouTube sound quality is poor, and 99% of your bandwidth being devoted to video is wasteful. Just use SoundCloud or something. Better yet revanced patched YT music or xmanager Spotify.
Edit: or better yet vimusic
I finally got a sub to Apple Music when I learned I get lossless by default. Yummmmmm.
I still hoard flacs, but Apple Music is dope.
Waiting for Spotify lossless to ditch flacs, I really want to like Tidal but I’ve had major issues every time I try and stick with it.
Eh, I switched to Spotify last year (++, of course) and there’s a lot to be said in favour of the Spotify algorithm when it comes to music recommendations, as opposed to YouTube.
I have gotten good recommendations from both but of course Spotify more often
This. You get actual bang for your buck
Anyone who uses spotify just to listen to their own music isn’t using spotify correctly.
I do. While I get your point, I mostly use it so that I don’t have to maintain my own music library. But maybe I should try switching to something like Navidrome.
Have you checked out the made for you playlists? The Monday discover and Friday new music playlists have been key in how I find music the past like 10 years.
They don’t really work for me. I listen to different genres, different languages. Sometimes I only like a single song from an artist. My taste is weird. I usually discover new music organically through friends, or sometimes I’ll hear something playing somewhere and stuff.
To me, it seems like the Spotify algorithm has a heavy bias towards newer songs, and also towards English songs. Both of those are a minority in my playlists, but somehow that’s all it recommends me.
They’re still visible with the current xmanager version
It does make sense though since Spotify has to pay musixmatch for the service.
Music is one of the easiest things to pirate, so much so that I often forget me downloading flacs of the songs I listen to is supposed to be a no-no
Between a flac playing app (Musicolet on Android and MusicBee on PC) as well as YT Music Revanced, things go smoothly
The only reason I don’t pirate music is because of discovery. I haven’t found a good way to find new music without using a streaming service. And then, I’m already using a streaming service, so why bother.
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Even then you might not see them. I’ve noticed recently that a ton of songs that used to have the lyrics attached no longer show the lyrics or have the button to show them. And I do have premium.
I noticed that as well, and I, too, have premium
Meanwhile, I’m sitting here with my pirated apk and I can still see all the lyrics 😂
To be fair, Spotify is unsuable without premium.
Spotify is unusable without
premiumXmanager
I pay them for other reasons.
Lol you guys pay for premium?
Does anybody know of an alternative app that can do live lyrics?
It’s all about having the .lrc file, it gets read automatically (as long as it’s named like the song file) by mpv player and many android players.
It’s a simple text file containing the lyrics with timestamps. You can get them from deezer for example with certain downloaders. Or look for them on Soulseek.
Rent seeking intensifies
Why do people use Spotify still? Momentum?
Edited for clarity, I’m not saying music streaming I’m specifically referring to getting it from one company.
Whose CEO heavily invests in military AI
And pays artists’ (and of course labels) the least out of their competitors?
xManager
What’s that?
I dont know
thx
It’s convenient. It’s where all my playlists are… that said, I’m open to alternatives?
download mp3s from youtube. Use rhythmbox on linux and metro on android. Metro even tries to find the lyrics online
I was big into downloading before streaming services were a thing. Music streaming is one of the few services that’s totally worth my money: no hassle and I rarely have to resort to other platforms to find what I want (very different from video streaming, which totally sucks when it comes to that).
100% this. Paying $12 a month for basically all music I’ll ever want to listen to, is just an amazing deal. It’s so convenient. Felt the same when Netflix came about. But now when I need like 6 services, and there’s still lots not on them. Piracy is just so much more convenient.
Felt the same when Netflix came about. But now when I need like 6 services, and there’s still lots not on them. Piracy is just so much more convenient.
Yep, that’s the step they forgot: be more convenient than the pirates.
Mp3s from YT are garbage quality, it’s double transcoding from YT’s already low quality input.
You can download audio from YouTube as 160kbps opus files, which aren’t lossless sure but it’s the highest quality you can get from YouTube if alternate means aren’t an option.
160kbps is garbage tier.
For mp3 sure, but for opus standards 160kbps is great. I read that 128kbps is generally considered the most you need but 160kbps smooths over any artifacts, assuming the source file doesn’t have them.
I haven’t noticed any quality issues and I only listen to mp3s from youtube
Then you probably don’t know any better because the vast majority of YT uploads are terrible quality. If you have anywhere near decent headphones/earbuds you can hear the difference immediately.
Well I’ve used spotify with and without headphones on popular phones, I can’t tell the difference from youtube. I usually download the music directly from the original uploader.
Yeah. If you’re gonna be downloading music from youtube, might as well just torrent flac or at least 320kbps quality instead.
Torrents mostly have pop music ime.
(Popular music trendy, ie Brittany Spears, Eminem, etc.)
Um, you need a hookup?
Can I use any of those at the same time I am playing a game on ps3/ps4/ps5 they way they have integrated spotify? I use spotify because it is available on the devices I use. I would use bandcamp on them if it were an option as I love my collection there but, it is not available on many of the devices I use.
personally I don’t find that convinience worth it for the money/ads and other inconveniences, but that varies from person to person
Now thats what inconvenient is.
I find it inconvenient to have limited skips and depend on one service to give you the song you want with the version you want. Also spotify ui doesn’t make sense to me, things just don’t work at times. Not to mention the ads.
If you pay for premium you won’t have most of those problems…
I don’t like paid services, especially when you can get the same or most of the same stuff for free. It’s just not worth it for me, so that is my suggested alternative, doesn’t work for everyone.
Unlike movie and tv streaming music streaming convenience is no contest for piracy if you’re an enthusiastic.
And this is coming from someone would download albums and discogrpahies, using programs to meticulously tag and organize them. I wish I had the time and patience now, and for the highlights of my collection I will, but with my music craving a music stream subscription is well worth it.
- Listen on YT with adblock
- Download audio with Newpipe (OPUS 160kbps)
- Manage files with Amaze
- Listen with VLC
I like this model, because YT has niche creators and I dont have to care about “Spotify changes X” news. Note: I have 1.5GB songs stored locally and listen ~30 minutes daily. I acknowledge discovering new songs is slower
160kbps? Jesus no lol
What’s OPUS compression like?
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Well, piracy, but I’d say apple music or tidal, etc are even better than Spotify. There are services for transferring your playlists.
Some are paid but if it’s just a one time transfer you could do them all in a free trial window.
Been using Soundiiz.com for that!
That’s the one! I’m sure there’s many options though.
People, don’t let your playlists stop you from shopping around streaming services.
If you have an eclectic music taste and don’t spend your life next to a computer, there’s practically no other option
Tidal, Deezer, Qobuz, Funkwhale, Apple Music, Youtube Music, just to name a few. Spotify has no shortage of competition.
My point is there’s little actual difference between them. Identical services provided by greedy corporations with shitty track records
You said there’s no other option, I just listed some options. Also Funkwhale is decentralised, there’s no corporation backing it. Ofc, you can also just download the music you like.
Apple music, Tidal, etc.
Spotify is funding military AI tech. That’s enough for me. I’m on android but I’d still rather use Apple Music, plus they pay artists slightly more, and tidal pays more than them.
I hate to tell you but everyone is funding scary military tech, even if you’re not an American tax payer. If you’ve flown on a Boeing plane, used Microsoft software, worn Oakley sunglasses… all that revenue goes to companies who do or support that research
I wouldn’t pay a recurring fee to any of them either.
Because it’s fantastic? Because it has almost all the music out there? Because it has an app on every device under the sun? Because it has amazing artist discovery? Because it lets you know of upcoming shows in your area?
Why wouldn’t you use Spotify if you’re a music fan? I’ve got 200gb+ of music on my NAS that I use Plexamp to listen to but I still subscribe to and use Spotify more.
I’m saying use one of the many streaming alternatives.
Do people use “Spotify” as a generic term for steaming?
Do people use “Spotify” as a generic term for steaming?
No, they use it to mean streaming from Spotify…?
You asked why people use spotify still, and I answered with many reasons why people specifically use spotify. Not every streaming service is the same, and spotify is widely regarded as the best.
See the line in my edit above:
That’s got nothing to do with why people use spotify though.
I don’t care if their CEO invests heavily in Military AI, neither do I care about them paying slightly less peanuts than Apple and Tidal. Bands make money from shows, not from CD sales or streaming. Execs make money from streaming and cd sales.
Hey, if those aren’t caveats for you, or just just prefer an interface too much to care, by all means, do you.
I don’t get why anyone would use the free tier - not being able to choose songs would actually drive me insane, let alone the ads - but $11 monthly for essentially all the music anyone could ever want, plus solid playlists and recommendations, is a perfectly good value for me. Admittedly, I listen to music all the time and it’s a pretty big part of my life, so it’s an easy sell.
I guess the free tier is still an improvement over radio, but regardless, producing and distributing music has costs, and I’m more than happy to pay for it. Given that Spotify isn’t even profitable, having lost about a billion dollars last year, I’m not sure how long this situation will last, but for the time being, I really don’t mind it.
Spotify isn’t the only company offering a monthly fee though.
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