I swear they haven’t added a single fucking feature that is worth anything. Every single thing they do makes their product worse.
I use tidal, and the only thing I miss from Spotify is the ability to transfer the music I’m listening to the PC or smartphone
I have many friends that complain about these things, that noticed the exact same pattern as you.
And yet, every last single time I’ve ask them “Have you looked into using a different service? Maybe try one?” they mumble out a noncommittal response and never do.
The question is whether it bothers someone enough to switch, and I cant really say thats the case for me. Because copying the playlists over and the additional price increase (losing the family plan) are too annoying tbh.
This is it for me. I’m on a family plan so I don’t pay for premium and I’ve over 300 songs in a favourite playlist plus probably 100 odd albums saved. That’s a lot for me to try and transfer over.
I’d be okay to transfer. It is nice linking to and being linked to Spotify given it’s the default in my circles.
Sorry artists I know they pay nothing :(
It’s because the things they don’t like aren’t big enough to switch and get new playlists etc.
I’ve tried amazon music google music and Spotify over the years. Spotify had by far the best library for me. The others were missing tonnes of incredibly big bands albums.
Man I just got Spotify because these two artists I got into don’t have bandcamp so it’s really hard to actually get files. Not even piracy worked. They’re on every streaming platform though.
I’m still bewildered by them changing the “Artists” tab in “Your Library” to show artists you follow (for event notifications) rather than just showing alphabetically, the artists in your library.
Its made the saved library useless for me. Once you have so much music it just becomes ridiculous to group them by album rather than artist. It feels like such an obvious thing that that is how the function should work but no, they insist on trying to make their music streaming service into some kind of social media-music streaming hybrid. Idiots.
Don’t use Spotify. Use Tidal, Apple Music, or just pirate and support authors other ways.
What happens at the y-axis is pure magic.
No wonder deezer lacks most of my beloved artists.
Can also recommend Qobuz which allegedly pays even more than tidal. And it also has real losless audio, instead of whatever Tidal is doing.
And you can even buy FLAC files from them, without DRM. Or use tools which you can find on the internet, where you can download the flac files ‘for free’ (you still need a subscription).
Or, continue to use Spotify but use xManager on android and spicetify on pc. This will give you the premium experience (and more!) without paying a single penny.
I gave xManager a go, and while it doesn’t have ads interrupting your listening, it does still have all the Spotify pop up ads trying to get you to upgrade to premium. It’s fine when listening, but selecting what you’re listening to is still irritating.
that’s strange, I’ve never had that
My premium Spotify account has resulted in me buying tickets and merch from artists I had never heard of. What’s wrong with that?
how do you need premium for that
Because if I had to listen to ads I wouldn’t use it.
with xManager or spicetify you don’t have to listen to any ads either
Yeah, those days are generally behind me. I want something that always works and I don’t mind paying for a functioning product. I don’t think comparing an actual service with ways of essentially stealing that service is a fair comparison, but I appreciate what you’re saying.
are you implying these apps don’t always work? because I’ve had little issues with them in the past few years (except that some extensions might stop working but those are just extras so 🤷)
Yep after first releases and concerts, the only people benefitting from the music are the distributors who deserve nothing for the effort the artist put in.
The distributors are the only people doing any work and providing a service after the artist walks out of the recording studio.
They are not the talent providing the work. They are skimming off talent. They are riding on someone else’s talent. They are the very definition of parasites. They would have no job if there were no talent. Meanwhile the talent can find other ways to sell their work.
The “talent” doesn’t have a platform without them. This is a mutually beneficial relationship. The "talent would be waiting tables and playing for peanuts in bars without the industry professionals.
What value do “industry professionals” add in 2024?
Not OP, but I work in the industry, mostly in the live production side. Here’s a taste of behind-the-scenes stuff that artists often rely on others to handle after they leave the recording studio:
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Booking shows, radio and television appearances, and other events
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Advancing those events with venue staff
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Organizing transportation, lodging, and food for tour
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Acquiring and managing all of the gear for tour
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Getting the artists from show to show while protecting them from themselves and others
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Marketing for shows and new releases
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Mixing the material the artist just recorded in the studio
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Mastering the music the mix engineer put together from that recorded material into a dozen different formats, so you can listen on vinyl, Deezer, YouTube, Spotify, etc.
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Mixing the front-of-house (what the audience hears) and mixing the monitors (what the artist hears) for the live show
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Making sure all the folks involved with the above are booked
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Paying all the folks they booked to make the above happen
I’m not saying the entertainment biz isn’t fucked up and that artists don’t deserve a bigger slice of the pie, but a lot of artists rely on other folks to handle this stuff for them so they have the space to live their lives, create new music, and give audiences a show worth attending.
Certainly, I depend on people more creative and musically talented than me, but they also depend on me and my technically-proficient and business-savvy peers to translate their creativity into something you can access and enjoy.
Thanks for a great reply. I totally see the need for recording engineers (live and mechanical) and related jobs.
Can you compare the industry now to 10 years ago. What jobs have disappeared? The music press seems much less relevant. Does the A&R executive still exist? Etc.
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Wait, so we all hate, or should hate Spotify for the low support for artists, but now that I think about it, there is nothing stopping artists from putting their work in the other platforms as well, are they becoming more rich because of it and we just should go with whichever offers the best service for us?
Don’t be harsh on me, I am not defending Spotify at all, just a dumb realization while seeing this graph 😆
I have no idea on the numbers, but given just how huge Spotify is compared to the others, I wonder if record labels just don’t see the worth in additionally posting to the other non major platforms like Tidal. Sure it pays ~3x more but it likely has ~50x less users.
Edit: I just wanted tildes before my numbers, I put a backslash before them to cancel them out as formatting codes, but now it just renders as <sub></sub>. If anyone can tell me how I should fix this please tell me
And don’t forget that Spotify can only handle around 150 songs in the queue. It doesn’t matter how big a playlist is, it will start repeat after a while. The proposed solution by spotify itself is to just deactivate shuffle and start on different songs in large playlist. It’s absolutely ridiculous. It bothers thousands of people but they won’t fix it. https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/All-Platforms-Option-to-have-a-true-shuffle/idi-p/4880594
What? Only 150? Is it some unoptimized list of their in-house song objects? I don’t understand how it can be the inefficient. Please tell me they just need to use an array and this isn’t them doing that.
I’ve read somewhere some time ago that they generally prefer the songs/files that are already cached somewhere close to the user to reduce costs for traffic whenever the user leaves the choice to Spotify
Spicetify has a true shuffle extension
But why would i need an extension for that; id much rather they get rid of the smart shuffle (legit the most annoying fucking thing on the app, or just a toggle to keep it off) and fix the shuffle on their own
fair enough, I just wanted to share that the option is there for those who really want it
Sorry wasnt directing the comment specifically at you and im actualy going to get the extension myself lmao
Just voicing my disappointment of spotify lol
Anything for Android/iOS?
I can’t recall the last time I used Spotify on desktop lol.
no unfortunately, xManager has Spotify premium features (except download) but no extra features
I once got a message from spotify saying congratulations, your musical taste is unique, you haven’t liked a single song we have recommended. They haven’t stopped trying though.
I gave up Spotify partly because they support Joe Rogan, but also because I mostly listen to classical music, and they kept shuffling in Britney Spears.
Spotify tends to think my tastes are more indie than they are, meanwhile YouTube Music (ReVanced) tends to to think my tastes are more mainstream than they are.
I haven’t tried any other services yet, but if anyone knows of one that provides good balance of well-known and not so well-known music, and is free (and commercial free; modded/hacked apps are preferred), please let me know.
I actually think YouTube is better than most but that’s still not saying a lot. Maybe Tidal.
I feel like I’m the only one around here who likes the Spotify recommendations. I’ve gotten so many bangers that fit my various little niche genre tastes.
The feature itself is fine, the fact that it’s literally in between you and turning regular shuffle on and off is incredibly irritating
I like getting recommendations, but that’s what the DJ is for. When I choose a playlist there’s usually a reason for it and adding random songs to it is not it.
See, I’d much rather just occasionally have to skip a song than listen to an AI mispronouncing band names.
It also cuts off the end of the song. Which is personally more irritating for me.
Spotify erased my precisely curated list because I’m Russian and this somehow helps to stop the war in Ukraine
deleted by creator
That’s how I’d behave if I wanted to start this journey again
I haven’t tested it myself but this seems interesting https://spotube.krtirtho.dev/
It grabs your playlists from Spotify and downloads the corresponding songs from YouTube
Interesting, but won’t help me personally. The account was erased.
All other services were like: ok, we cannot process your payment due to the war. This one yielded a bizarre message about how I am complicit with Russian army’s atrocities in Ukraine and therefore they delete my account till the end of March 2022
Like okay, Spotify you made your political statement, but does it somehow affect the actual political situation? I admire some Russian piracy sites that replaced advertisements with cinematics from Bucha and links to volunteers that helped Ukrainians to move to Europe through Russia
Money talks; if they imply any support for unpopular opinion people would drop support, thus making them lose money
I don’t understand your point tbh.
They did choose to exit russian market because
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Russian market is minor compared to western market, given the fact that russian market of Music streaming is dominated by Yandex Music.
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There were not that many ways of legalizing income from Russian territory because of visa/mc ban and swift ban.
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Political climate in Russia was and is quite harsh: bizarre regulations and employees as hostages just to name a few.
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Twitter politics (shaming companies that do not exit russian market) was a minor factor I believe. Some western corps are there including the one where I used to work (USA). Also YouTube/google still bans content that authorities find inappropriate (e.g. how to escape draft)
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Saving 30 minutes a month (or even week), Spotify starts to sound like a good deal. I’m in!
Wouldn’t that work for free Spotify too? If that’s your thing, it’s probably worth sitting through the occasional ad rather than paying for it.
But that is eating from my time. Given time=money in the above statement, this would eventually bring the value down to zero again.
To rephrase: I would not spend 30 minutes listening to ads in order to save 30 minutes of spare time. Probably even less because ads are very disruptive to me, wasting more precious time.
Weird. I got noone telling me to listen vinyl on a hand driven Grammophone right now
Why would you leave tempo control in tge hands of a soulless machine? #beyourownconductor
Maybe lemmy is too popular for the hipsters.
Hot take but hasn’t been a problem for me. Like, the feature stays off until I turn it on again, and I only turn it on when I’m trying to expand a playlist.
I use Spotify for discovering new songs, mostly for adding to the DJ arsenal. I listen to a lot of music. Enough that I make like 15-20ish playlists a year for various subgenres of tunes either released or discovered that year.
Since I compartmentalize my genres so methodically, smart recommendations tend to be on the money and more of what I’m looking for. But again, when I just wanna hear what I’ve assembled I just leave it off – never on unless I turn it on.
Definitely been eyeballing alternatives though, since Spotty is getting deeper into their enshitty arc.
I never want to turn it on, but I do swap from shuffle to regular (depending on whether I want to listen to just the newest stuff I’ve added), which means I have to click through smart shuffle now too.
Which wouldn’t be a huge problem, but if you do it too fast, smart shuffle appears to be off, but the songs it has added are at least partially still in the queue.
As an easily-distracted multitasker I can certainly appreciate the inconvenience of clicking past it. Would be lovely to have a solid on/off in settings to omit the optional from playback.
More options almost always better than fewer in my mind!
Yeah, I had to read this meme several times over to figure out what it was saying. Smart Shuffle just randomly turns on for people? I’ve literally never had that happen. It only turns on when I turn it on.
Song quality is terrible. The features are lacking and rarely useful. Now they have increased the rates and take away car play. I left when I realized my top artists and songs were the same every year. Much better to buy the songs when the quality is way better and I actually own the media
Do you and I live on a different planet? I grew up when you downloaded actual poor quality music. I stream Spotify at the highest bitrate it has, and it sounds fine. I have a nice system at home.
You talk about features and whatnot, and admittedly I am a simple user. I have albums I like, I turn on album and listen through cover to cover. I throw on Smartless, because for some reason I find Jason Bateman and Will Arnett’s abuse of Sean Hughes to be endearing.
As per usual, people on Lemmy seem to make up problems, and it ruins any sort of argument against anything. Spotify’s audio quality is not the issue. The issue is obviously the artist remuneration. To create this fake argument is to dilute any worthwhile argument, but Lemmy and Reddit before it seems to take this tack wherever possible.
I have discovered numerous artists because of Spotify. Spotify has linked me to their tickets (albeit Live Nation and fuck them) and merch stores, and I’ve bought their shitty tshirts and vinyls. I would say that’s a benefit. And I like some obscure nonsense.
Is it perfect? I don’t like how Spotify has handled its personnel. I think they can make their business model related to plays a little more friendly, but holy shit, the idealism here is ridiculous. You have people demanding perfection, without recognizing the alternative is nothing.
Also, they’ll probably kill the Car Thing permanently soon. Another bad move.
Lidarr + Jellyfin + Finamp… Need I say more?
Yes now tell us how to get that working on any device I have regardless of what network I’m connected to. Assume I’m behind a cgnat, don’t have my own domain, and know fuck all about networking.
Finally compare all that hassle to just paying a few bucks per month.
In the same boat. Shit country, behind CGNAT, no money for domain. I found a cheap seedbox I use. Yeah it depends on whether it’s worth the hassle… For me, I like tinkering with software and I love the concept of owning my media and that no company has their eyes on my data, so it’s worth it. But if you just wanna lay down and watch, Netflix it is. Something always breaks when you self-host 🥲
ViMusic
I use Spotify a lot but have zero clue what smart shuffle is
It’s supposed to add music similar to the playlist you’re listening to randomly to your queue. I think it’s just the enhance playlist feature with a different name.
Its real purpose is to stuff your listening experience with cheap songs so that prick can make more billions.
I think most people would rather find new music than something that’s already popular with a million listens already myself.
Gooby plz
