I tend to wear a special hat that allows me to consume music in any format or device I like.
and then go donate to, or purchase music directly from the artists that I like.
yar har har.
Tidal is owned by Block, the owners of Square, which is the biggest POS vendor in the US. If that’s not big tech I don’t know what is.
Part of the reason I just shifted to a fully self-hosted setup.
Left Spotify because of all the bullshit they pull, tried out Tidal because of the higher quality and higher artist pay, but even if it is a substantially better platform, its ownership is questionable to say the least.
I dusted off bandcamp and learned to use slskd to build a full local high quality library powered by a Navidrome instance.
Music artists absolutely fucking hate music streaming services! It’s too big to not participate, and in a lot of cases, their record label won’t let them not do so. But the pay is absolute shit! If you care about tbe artist behind the music, buy their music. If you don’t want to have all your music stored on device because it takes too much room, there are self-host options.
Going solely with streaming is actively screwing artists over, especially in the case of Spotify, which pays out to the tune (pun intended) of 0.0001¢ per stream. Even an artist as well known as Weird Al barely makes enough to buy a sandwich from what Spotify pays! Other platforms are better, but not by much. I don’t say this to guilt trip; many big names make good money from record deals and will be just fine, while most of us don’t make much. Indie artists are the real losers here.
That said, music had gotten cheap! Most of your favorite indie artists will sell FLAC versions of their albums for $10 an album, or $1 a song on Bandcamp, and prices are between $10-20 for major artists on platforms like Qobuz. It might take time to build your library back up, but the average person can make a huge difference here by taking the money you would spend on Spotify or any other platform, and buying your music directly. You’d be paying the artist more than they’d get from you streaming nothing but their album every day all year, eventually you’ll be paying less in the long run by not being subbed to a greedy music platform, and you’ll get better quality!
A glance at this makes me happy to just keep playing my mp3s.
Reality check here. If morals or personal philosophy means the most to you, then self hosting is really the only honest choice, assuming you then buy merch from artists. If features and library size are most important then you probably need Spotify. All the other worthwhile options might come with a good USP but they’re usually flawed in comparison to Spotify.
Screw AI music, but it is on every platform. Spotify is just a victim of its success in this regard.
Edit: not a fanboi btw, just a dad with a family who likes to use Spotify. I have to pay for YT premium as well so the kids don’t get ADs on their stupid iPhones. If the YT music app wasn’t so shit I’d dump Spotify and make everyone switch, proving my point.
Naspers is a South African multinational internet, technology and multimedia holding company headquartered in Cape Town… did you mean Napster…? Did you generate this with AI or something?
Why would the largest music streaming service in the world be in the “other” category and not the “Big Tech Incumbents”.
Yeh and the blurb for splotifry reads like an ad, with not a negative word to say about this exploitative monster.
I mean, the “To Note” section includes information about their worse practices. The whole infographic is such a nonsense mishmash.
I’m trying to get most of what I like on CD and then host a jellyfin server
Qobuz rocks!
I tried them for a bit and really wanted to like them but their “modern” metal catalog, playlists, and discover-ability was so bad I had to begrudgingly go back to tidal.
I just use OuterTune for YT Music. It works and it is less sus than ReVanced YT Music
This figure mentions Spotify on a side note. You must be joking.
Indeed. It should be at the top as the defacto music streaming platform based on popularity.
Can’t ungoogle myself this time. YT music has probably the best catalog of all and it’s easily moddable
Laughs in Navidrome, again.
There are also Faircamp and Mirlo, if you are looking for even fairer and progressive alternatives.
Which one has the biggest selection and highest quality audio, ad-free for $0/mo?
I use YouTube Music ReVanced, and while the audio quality isn’t the highest (because it’s YouTube), you can’t beat the song selection. Especially when it’s free and ad-free.
ReVanced can also patch the Spotify app
Spotify has no music. I don’t like it.
(Seriously, it’s missing so many songs! But thanks anyway.)
You’re likely violating the YouTube terms of service and can be banned at any moment. Also you’re stealing from musicians. Lemmy has multiple piracy communities that can probably give you more options
“Stealing” from record industry executives, you mean. Artists make the vast majority of their income from merch, autograph signings, and ticket sales. I couldn’t care less if a billionaire executive misses out on a few hundred bucks from me over my lifetime. And secondly, making a copy isn’t stealing.
Edit: Also why would you think that I give a single shit about YouTube’s TeRmS oF sErViCe? (Why would any non-government citizen?) Fuck Google.
Some of these services don’t offer themselves in turkey (tidal)
