Can’t even seek through songs.
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Well, if you don’t pay with money, you’re paying with your attention. Do you think they create this huge service just for funsies?
Tbf, out of all media streaming services across movies, series, and music, Spotify has the highes bang-for-your-buck. It’s still like Netflix at that time when there was only Netflix and you could watch almost everything on one platform. I still buy records that I like on physical media like vinyl, but Spotify is such a great deal for convenient listening to all music out there.
Spotify thanks you for defending our platform and more importantly the investment portfolios of our shareholders. Share this email for one free month of spotify premium.
Surely you have a better explanation for why Spotify isn’t giving you the full service for free.
Spotify is not profitable nor ever has been. It accrued $4B in additional debt last year. The business is subject to high royalty fees. As a competitor, I just leave free Spotify running all day on mute since they lose money from every subscriber. The royalties are the same whether they make money or not on the customer. It is wise of them to more aggressively convert people to paid plans, but I’m sure that their margins are razor thin.
You individually are a competitor to Spotify?
I hum in the shower 😎👉👉
Yeah don’t use it if you don’t want to, idc. But you might accept the thought that there are people that think the deal Spotify puts on the table is good.
Man these people forget the days when a month of Spotify would afford you 1 CD. I remember cause I would spend half my paycheck on music. I’m just sitting here happy for services like Spotify and YouTube in my life. I remember a time when music and information was much harder to obtain (even illegally).
But if you bought the CD you actually owned something. Stop paying for the services and you have nothing if all you used was spotify/YouTube/pandora. I gave up on paying for streaming years ago and spend the same amount monthly on purchasing music. I get CDs, either new or used. I’ve amassed a collection and I don’t need Internet or monthly charges to play them.
We all have our preferences and I enjoy the quantity of music I can get in a heartbeat. It really sucked when you were 16 and spent $15 on a CD that sucked because there was no way to hear it ahead of time.
But I don’t want to own it. I don’t want to amass a collection of CDs taking up space somewhere. Been there, done that. I have a large collection of ripped mp3s from CDs I bought in the 90s and early 2000s (I’ve long since disposed of the physical media). I haven’t clicked on a single one of them in years, I just keep them for nostalgia sake and because they take relatively little space.
I just occasionally want to listen to music sans commercials or annoying DJs wasting my time. For the cost of 1 CD a month my entire family can listen to almost anything they desire, at any time, without hassles (on Pandora in our case but I assume the economics are similar).
Same thing with movies, honestly. I watch them once and move on. There’s a small handful I like enough to rewatch and I do own those.
I get the whole, we don’t own anything anymore, argument and I mostly agree with it (see my massive Steam library). I just want both options to be viable. Streaming for ephemeral entertainment and actual ownership for the things I choose to keep.
Valid point, but commuting with my turntable to listen to my sick vinyls on the go is a pain in the ass. Also moving sucks ass when you have a metric fuckton of sensitive vinyl to move. Owning stuff also has its downsides. Also no way I’m digitizing my vinyls and cutting them and shit to listen to them on the go, ain’t nobody got time fo dat.
I gave up on CDs roughly 15 years ago because I don’t like the format compared to vinyl (small album art, plasticy jewelcases, …).
Kid: goes to school
Police: THAT’S ILLEGAL
I feel you, the value from Spotify is enormous. I can sift through ten different bands in no time just because I decided that I want to look up a new genre that I may or may not be totally into by the end.
I know not everyone will agree, but I think YouTube premium is the better bang-for-buck service. $3 more per month than Spotify and includes YouTube Music premium and YouTube Premium. So all the music and ad-free YouTube.
Except what YT Premium does is easily doable with free tools.
*with free tools from thankless efforts.
You can donate to projects you like tho
Only so long as Google decides to continue serving content for free to people who contribute nothing to their bottom line, which isn’t guaranteed to last.
An argument could easily be made for Spotify as well. There are plenty of options for streaming music for free to your device with download support. Just about anything can be done for free if people are willing.
YouTube is basically the same price as Spotify in my country (only 12 cents more actually), so even more bang for my buck, specially for family plans.
Careful, this same take when discussing YouTube ads will draw the ire of the internet
I’d rather vote for Deezer. Costs the same, but you also get lossless (16-bit 44.1kHz FLAC) audio.
By the way, free-mp3-download.net rips songs from Deezer. And if you don’t like spending storage, you could self-host your own Navidrome server, though I get that may not be convenient.
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You’re not hurting the companies, you’re hurting the artists. I’m not saying don’t pirate at all, especially from artists like Taylor swift. But maybe if you’re listening to a small artist, especially if they’re independent, consider buying their cd.
If the option is Spotify or pirating, you’re really not hurting indie artists. They don’t make shit from streaming.
There is still a difference between basically nothing and literally nothing. Spotify is better than pirating and CDs/vinyl/digital directly from them is better than Spotify.
That tracks. Every artist who spoke to me about this (I’m kind of a hobby musician) told me a) fuck labels, not worth it, b) Promotion is 95% of the game and you have to master it yourself, c) no money in Spotify except for the top .1% or so percent, the money always comes from gigs or shows so starting live early is a good idea.
Additionally, when you listen to an artist on Spotify or YT Music, it increases the chance of the app promoting that artist to other users.
Relying on an algorithm is a lie when record labels can just circumvent that with money.
hey now I make 10 bucks a year from streaming royalties. I can almost buy a fancy coffee with a shot of booze for that. Oh the life of an indie music artist.
The last album I bought was Ty Segal’s latest. I have seen him live at least a dozen times and bought roughly $600 worth of limited releases and shirts at these shows. I “discovered” him thru Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist that automatically puts together music they think I will like.
I think all the free users are the problem. They don’t want to pay for the service, they complain about ticket and merch prices at shows and hardly contribute anything to the artists themselves. They blame Spotify when it’s Ticketmaster and the labels they should direct their anger towards. Not paying users like me.
According to this blogpost or whatever it is Spotify basically doesn’t pay artists, so if there’s a niche/local/whatever band you like, the best way to show support is by buying their tracks/records directly from them.
I think for smaller artists, Spotify is less for revenue and more for exposure, hoping that your music can reach new listeners.
“I can’t pay you in cash, but I’ll get you exposure!”
“woah” as they hold up the piece of paper that says ‘exposure’, “this is worthless!”
(kinda meme kinda serious, as I know nobody who hears an artist on a streaming service and then does anything past listen to them on said streaming service, netting the artist effectively nothing)
I think my favourite retort to “we can pay you in exposure” that I’ve ever seen has been “people die from exposure.” It’s just so succinct.
I get your point but it really depends on the audience you’re looking at. Personally, I use Spotify a lot to listen to any new artist I can find and check their stuff out without crawling a) youtube or b) buying their records in advance. If I stumble upon some stuff that I’m really into, I look if there are any vinyls available. (Bonus step c): you’re two months late to the vinyl release and the discocks are already hoarding all copies, smh.)
The point you’ve made kinda boils down to the question if music is a hobby or a commodity for said person. The “problem” I’m seeing is that music is more of a commodity to many people that just listen to stuff for the sake of listening to it. That’s just a product of changing times and the relation between people and music and the distributors inbetween reflects that. Of course this is frustrating for the load of talented artists that just niche audiences care about.
know nobody who hears an artist on a streaming service and then does anything past listen to them on said streaming service
Please allow me to introduce myself lol.
I go to live shows pretty frequently, maybe every two months or so, and my first exposure to many of the artists I’ve seen came from a random Spotify recommendation. I don’t think this kind of thing is particularly uncommon among people who go to shows frequently. If I don’t learn about them from Spotify, I heard about them from a friend or online community that was listening to them. Music really moves through social networks, so exposure can have some real value, though I agree it’s rather cruel to literally not pay an artist and simply tell them they’re getting exposure.
But hey, if exposure truly was worthless, advertising wouldn’t be a multi-billion dollar industry.
Yeah, spotify recommendations, spotlist, and whatnot has replaced what MTV was back in the day.
I have the same experience. It’s not like I’m on tick tock or watching MTV to find new artists. I deep dive thru the artists I already like and find them that way. It’s expanded what I listen too compared to my dad who is still stuck in the 70s
As someone who’s friends with a few multinational artists with millions of plays on spotify – no that’s now how any of this works.
They literally make pennies on thousands of plays.
If you want to support artists, download and share mp3s, buy vinyl, and see them live.
We’re talking about Pennies. I go to their shows and buy merch (preferably from their websites). The artists see more direct money that way.
What’s with the instance hate. It’s fucking cringe.
Spotify is not actually profitable, not that I imagine you actually care about discussing such annoyances as facts. I imagine you probably wouldn’t personally love the idea of working while actively losing money for the privilege?
I guess Kbin is getting a reputation for having such wild takes as “Stealing isn’t exactly great,” so I’m glad to see I chose a Fediverse home wisely.
Y’all have some of the most self centered takes. And if it’s not self centered, it’s either dumb or pro-capitalist.
If your definition of resisting capitalism is apparently “not paying for things that other people provide for you”, I think that says more about you than it really says about economics.
To then call me the self-centered one is actual comedy, so thanks for that laugh.
Yeah if you can’t pay for Spotify then don’t, I get you. It doesn’t make their subscription offer any worse, though, if you decide on pirating.
https://medium.com/brain-labs/why-spotify-struggles-to-make-money-from-music-streaming-ba940fc56ebd
For anyone wanting to rage at Spotify, I’d remind you that Spotify has never actually turned a profit. They lose money on every single paid user, and even more on free users. Tl;dr of the article (sorry for the account-wall) is that Spotify is contractually obligated to give around 70% of every dollar it makes to the labels, who then eat most of it and give a few crumbs to the artists. If you want to support artists, buy their merch, their physical albums, and go to their shows. If they’re independent, they may actually see some non-trivial revenue from streaming as well.
Spotify may also be contractually restricted in what level of access they can offer for free - licensing can be very messy - and they also do need to create enough incentive to actually make the paid tier worth it. Given that a month of access to essentially all music ever costs about as much as a single CD did back in the day, it feels like pretty incredible value to me, personally. Yes, you can of course always pirate if you want to deal with the hassle of that, but you should at least keep it in the back of your mind that, if everyone did that, we wouldn’t have any music to enjoy at all. If the cost of streaming or buying music is genuinely a burden, I wouldn’t blame you that much for pirating, but if you can afford it, I do think the value really is there, if only to avoid the sheer hassle of pirating and managing a local library. And if you really think that streaming is just uniquely corrupt and terrible, CDs haven’t gone anywhere.
But if you can easily afford to pay for music and you still refuse to, at least have the honesty to just admit that you want to get things for free and you don’t care about anyone involved in creating it getting paid for it, without dressing it up as some kind of morally righteous anti-capitalist crusade. It’s normal to be annoyed about having to pay for things; we all are, and we all want to get things for free. Just admit that instead of pretending your true motivation is anything deeper.
Holy shit, an actually reasonable take on Lemmy regarding subscription services. I genuinely couldn’t believe what I was reading and was waiting for the “LOL, JK! Pirate everything, they don’t deserve my money and fuck every ad and paid service ine the universe.”
Thank you!
ngl, I was expecting to enjoy roasting in downvote hell, so this has been a pleasant surprise haha.
I think a lot this stuff winds up people taking the bad feeling of paying for a thing, which is course completely normal, and twisting it into them somehow being personally wronged rather than simply accepting that yeah, spending money feels bad.
That said, if there is an obvious bad guy in this story, it’s pretty clearly the labels, and given how unimportant radio and traditional music marketing is becoming, I would love to see more and more artists operate independently or with small labels and see the oligopoly of the Big 3 fall apart. They may have been somewhat necessary 80 years ago, but nowadays, they simply don’t provide anywhere near as much value as they suck up.
we have a family subscription (12€/mo.?) in our household, and i would probably not go back to pirating music anytime soon. they offer genuinely great features and from your post, they don’t seem to be the bad guy here. anyway, if it’s not shutting down in the next couple of months, i’ll keep using it. but they do neet to get some FLACs onto there soon.
if there existed something like spotify for video streaming, i probably wouldn’t even pirate movies right now.
I personally would never pay for music it it weren’t for Spotify.
Yes, you can of course always pirate if you want to deal with the hassle of that, but you should at least keep it in the back of your mind that, if everyone did that, we wouldn’t have any music to enjoy at all.
This is bunk. If people pirated the record labels out of business we would have less music sure, but there will always be people who make music for the love of the craft, rather than just to line an executive’s pocket.
I’m all for directly supporting artists (and I buy albums and merch directly from the band wherever possible), but let’s not pretend like the people pulling the strings aren’t also responsible for the shitty situation they’re in.
Fuck the recording industry and how they treat artists. And I say that as a premium streaming service customer.
This is such a lame excuse. If the company never turned a profit - they shouldn’t exist anymore. Not shittify their service till nobody uses it.
But their service is great if you pay for premium. Which is fine in my book.
A hacked client on the free tier is also a decent experience.
This month’s expenses:-
- Concert tickets: $350
- Vinyl records: $100
- Pirating Spotify: $0
I think I’m winning.
The point is they haven’t turned a profit even with people having premium. So what’s the reason for them to exist
This is the case with a lot of companies. Facebook didn’t turn a profit for 10 years or something that sounds equally crazy.
That’s more or less the problem (one of many problems I suppose). Companies seem to think it’s a good business model to burn money collecting a user base and then turn all their free users into paying users down the line.
Think drug dealers. They wanna be that.
I’m absolutely not defending Spotify or any other capitalist entity, but profit by no means constitutes a reason to exist. I know plenty of people who have never turned a profit and in fact accrued debt who are far more valuable than any executive at Spotify.
I just don’t give a shit if Spotify or any major labels exist. I buy records and merch from independent labels run by people that actually have a soul.
Don’t use it if you don’t like it.
None of those options are new. It’s how Spotify free always worked.
Try spotube. You can find it on f-droid, and you can sign in with your Spotify free account. I’ve been using it for a month and I even have my father using it. I don’t have to deal with any of the bs listed in this picture.
Edit: my apologies for becoming unhinged in the rest of the thread. Something about people commenting just to say “well, what do you expect? You have to pay!” Really gets under my skin, because they don’t know what other people are going through and it always sounds like they are coming from a privileged perspective.
Just because I coud not find it: it’s Spotube. Thanks for the suggestion! ✌️
You are the main mango 👍🏾
What are the chances of spotify blocking an account if we use that?
When they block your account they are effectively doing you a favor
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This but on a nas
You’re using a free account. If you’re worried, splash out for another free account just for Spotube.
It’s a free account, what’d be stopping you from just creating a new one?
Losing every single one of the songs you’ve liked/tossed in a playlist. When you’re deep in the thousands, it’s not exactly easy to remember even the ones you especially like.
If it’s that important to you and you use it that extensively, is it maybe worth a few bucks a month?
Idk, probably very low? And if they did I have other apps like ViMusic that I can use for the same purpose. Fuck em.
Soooo, pandora?
Isn’t free Pandora the exact same thing?
I was making that comparison, yes
xmanager
Just listen to the radio then instead of complaining here?
I don’t mind having ads while listening to plain radio. But on Spotify there were more ads than songs lately, so they forced me to buy a subscription. They did not reinvent the radio, they made it worse.
on Spotify there were more ars than songs lately, so they forced me to buy a subscription
Aah, so their tactic is working 100% as intended.
But they didn’t force you to do anything. you willingly chose to reward them for their shitty method instead of ditching them because of it.
One think that idgaf about paying for is Spotify or any music streaming service. We use a family plan anyway but even full price isn’t great value for money.
Spotify has been like that for years now on mobile devices. At least here in Germany
Truly amazing. 2023 really is the year for less for more
- Pay $0 to use a product from a business that is losing money
- Business makes a policy change to try to convince you their product is worth paying for, but still let’s you use a version of it for FREE
- Wow this company sucks, I’ve given them nothing and they’re taking everything away
In a capitalist society you speak with your money. It’s the only language businesses speak. If you’re not giving a company any money they’re not going to cater their product to you, plain and simple.
What alternatives to Spotify exist? Any recommendations?
YouTube clients like NewPipe.
I’d use YouTube Music clients like ViMusic instead
Deezer
I’ve really been enjoying TIDAL after I got frustrated with all the garbage YT music was putting into the app.
InnerTune is the best alternative I’ve found. Uses YouTube music, is free, no account required, and it has a really great UI.
Try ViMusic
Spotube. You can sign in with your Spotify account and keep all of your playlists.
Very fair.
Does xManager not work anymore or do you use apple?
At least the radio has someone that talks and occasionally interacts with the audience
Are you complaining or its just an FYI?
