Wildly disrespectful to any artist that ever lived. I’m all up for sharing alternatives that are good/better towards actual artists. Still evaluating my choices, but meanwhile this seems like the only and rather easy signal the streaming community can give as to spread the word if they agree (next to stopping your own subscription). Context: https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/22/spotifys-ai-bet-more-of-everything-less-of-what-you-want/
Isn’t… literally anything but Spotify better? There are dozens of streaming services, many of them great, and websites to export your playlists.
I don’t understand why it’s so difficult to unsubscribe.
You’d be surprised at how addicted the kids are to their brain rot. Look at how much hate YouTube gets, and yet- they’re more profitable than ever.
Stockholm Syndrome of the modern tech world. And it gets so much worse from here.
Because then I lose all my playlists
No you dont, every streamer from spotify to apple music to qobuz and deezer allow for a full import. I switched to apple music and it pulled everything.
It is a worse service though which says a lot, spotify does suck but AM has a terrible and boring UI and UX
My wife and I ditched streaming for just owning music through bandcamp or CD. We’ve exported her Spotify playlists. If anybody has a link to a tool for generating local playlists from exported Spotify JSONs (for tracks you own, and a list of tracks you need to complete them), I’m all ears.
Oh interesting. Except I hate apple and never heard of the others
Qobuz is awesome, still growing though.
Spotify has always been the music streaming service for people who love music but hold disdain for artists.
Or maybe just don’t use Spotify at all?
So basically, you can self host something similar to Spotify fairly easily or just keep your music on your phone (if you aren’t a die hard quality guy and don’t have millions of songs).
There’s spot-dl to mass download your playlists from YouTube. Granted, YouTube doesn’t have everything. Then you can support your favorite artists directly by buying merch from their website, their albums on Bandcamp, etc.
The thing is you can stop using the app but it will still keep generating playlists for you. By now, it knows you pretty well. So you can just go back periodically to download more songs and abuse of the algo without actually giving them money and ad revenue. From what I understand, it’s the discovery feature that is missing from most open source apps.
Hmm, I grew up with the pirate stuff back in the day but am kind of at the age where I don’t mind paying a little more for things I appreciate. I’m into self-hosting and all, but would love for there to be an ethical and legal alternative to recommend 😅. I think I would miss the jam-feature the most on such a route, as sharing the playlist/queue wherever you are from a huge catalog with friends is difficult to maintain. It seems that convenience is always the way they keep you locked in ☹️
Would prefer to support Google as little as possible. Why use YouTube?
Because you can’t really grab music as easily anywhere else. You aren’t using YouTube really, just downloading the song once through them.
There are torrents but the scene isn’t the best from what I understand, most songs are missing the moment it isn’t a classic. It might have changed since last I checked.
So just because something is easy, I should be able to steal it?
Well, if it’s between that or paying Spotify to steal it for you. Best is just to buy all your music directly off the bands website.
I did outline you should buy from bands in my first comment. It’s okay imo to pirate a lot even if you support just a few bands. It’s better than what Spotify is offering.
I have yet to find an artist that is available on Spotify that doesn’t also sell their music by the album for a fair price.
Not everyone can afford that.
Hence why I said “if it’s between [piracy for most and directly supporting a few] or letting Spotify steal for you.”
You aren’t defending artists right now, you are defending a parasitic corporate juggernaut that is feeding on the artists.
Why should you have music if you can’t afford it? Do you need it to live? I’m a fucking musician, I am absolutely defending artists. What instrument do you play?
My argument is that people should pay artists for their music. Folks that use Spotify to any degree are the ones supporting the corporate juggernauts. Go directly to the source. Please don’t misrepresent my argument in the future.
Edit: trying to cover all my bases. In pop music, the “artist” is the collaboration of all the corporate entities responsible for producing their talent. I don’t listen to that shit either. Just try to know the artist you’re listening to.
I’d have to actually use Spotify for that. No thanks.
I’m all up for sharing alternatives that are good/better towards actual artists.
- Tidal
- Qobuz
- Deezer
- Apple Music
Literally everyone pays artists more than Spotify. Even fucking Peleton, apparently.
Tidal seems to be the best option overall. Deezer pays artists less initially than the other services (but still more than Spotify), but the royalties increase for tracks with at least 1,000 streams from 500 unique subscribers each month. Popular artists with more play make more royalties. You benefit Deezer, they benefit you, which makes sense to me.
Qobuz seems to pay highly to artists, but their library is a bit more limited compared to Tidal and Deezer, and their radio functionality is utterly shit.
Apple is the only one I don’t have much info on. I’ve used all four at various points, but Apple Music the least because I don’t like my options being limited to playing it on my Apple TV, and Apple devices are limited to 24-bit/48khz, and Apple has weird EQ that pushes vocals way forward in my experience. I don’t like the music fucked with, just play it without DSP and let my equipment to the work, okay?
Currently subscribed to Qobuz and Deezer, and seriously, fuck Spotify.
I left Spotify two years ago and haven’t looked back. I’ve been happy enough with Tidal but eventually I’m going to start self-hosting.
Please boycott Spotify* there that is what the title should read
It’s years since I last subscribed to Spotify, their app is an annoyance that’s try to push shit like podcast and advertising that i don’t like.
Yeah, so… if them supporting ICE wasn’t enough to make people stop supporting that rash, AI isn’t going to do it either.
just so you know: big tech apps have 4.5+ rating cause of bot ratings. the only way is to just use something else. qobuz simply bans ai music from the platform, deezer has better artist recommendation by having people correct the algorythm a bit. there are alternatives out there, you do not have to live in shame anymore.
The sentence could’ve ended after Spotify…
Spotify was never any good. That fact that people even use it just help demonstrate how stupid the average person is.
No. Use Metrolist instead.
