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.

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.

I’m trying to get most of what I like on CD and then host a jellyfin server

Qobuz rocks!

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.

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.

Some of these services don’t offer themselves in turkey (tidal)

Is there a way to get a list of all the songs I like on spotify for archival purposes? Not the file, just a list. Like a shopping list.

spotdl