I have got to admit I canned Spotify subs years ago - but how are they managing to grow their subscriber base whn it is now going to be £11.99 in the UK? That is way, way too high for what it offers...
You guys are paying for Spotify?
Firefox & ublock and there are no publicities.
My 'ol android apk doesn't work any more thoug... and can't find a new one (Hint hint, blink blink)
Same with pi-hole.
I guess some people are, as long as it’s a good balance of convenience and price. Ages ago, Napster, Kazaa and DC++ were considered more convenient than buying music. I guess torrents are used for that these days.
There's a P2P app from the same era as KaZaA, originally released the same year (2001), that's still in active use today: Soulseek. It's a great way to find obscure music, some of which isn't on streaming services and is extremely difficult to obtain otherwise.
Usenet is good for less popular stuff too. Torrents die once the last seed is gone, but some Usenet providers have over 10 years retention, and you always get full speeds over an encrypted connection with no uploading required.
Edit: Support artists where possible, but sometimes there's music that's impossible to find, and that's when these services come in handy.
We have the duo plan, for me and my wife. Kids don't need one yet.
I don't no. But as they keep removing features from the free account, and here in the UK you at least need an account now to play anything people do
There are ways you can use a Spotify account registered in another country and you basically pay about £2 a month. I'm mainly into 80s and 90s music and used Spotify to discover music, and once I come across a song I like I add the album name to a list (i.e. note it down) and find the CD from a second hand shop or failing which obtain the FLAC files some other way. This way I now have an offline library that has most of the songs that I love. Spotify will be there as long as I can just pay £2-ish but the moment they try the age verification or raise prices, its bye-bye for them.
They age verify in the UK already...
For most people though they won't be hacking things to use Spotify. I agree £2 a month is OK but for me the issue is they charge a fortune yet pay artists a pittance
I ripped CDs to FLAC, put them on a Plex server, and use Plexamp on my computer and phone. Now I've got my own personal streaming service.
Not everyone will do that though... plenty of people I know have zero idea about that kind of stuff
Friendly reminder that your “legally acquired” library of FLAC files never raises its subscription prices!
Man, music is one of those things where file sizes, quality and performance all conspire to make both offline media and self-hosting so viable. I never understood Spotify's role.
I mean, you can like physical media and understand why Netflix was more convenient than digging through enormous TV DVD boxsets. But who the hell didn't have a MP3 dump of hudreds of CDs by the time Spotify started being a thing?
That is fascinating to me as well:
Movies > Big filesizes > many public trackers and seeders
Music > smaller and easier to store/play > less public trackers, only slsk is really viable
Books > even smaller > there are some websites like anna and a lot of small ones
But then: Sheet music > even smaller files > almost impossible to pirate
It is fascinating to me that there isnt one clear spectum along filesize.
I guess it has to do with the target audience and demand.
I wouldn’t have subbed to Spotify on my own. I’m inherited into my wife’s family plan. For me the biggest benefit is just discovering new music. I used to have a big MP3 library, but after a couple computer upgrades, they’ve kind of disappeared over the years. Having Spotify there has been really convenient for just listening toto old stuff I’ve lost as well. This said, if my FiL cancels, I probably wouldn’t sub for myself anyway.
It's easy, consistent, and they put new music in front of you. That's all most people want.
Self hosting is a pain. It's work. Nobody wants to fuck with servers while their kids are yelling cause music is down with the rest of entertainment.
I was like 9 when Spotify was incorporated
Your parents failed you by not having an MP3 dump of hundreds of CDs to give to you.
spotify pays me half a cent per stream, the profit margins for them must be fucking insane. and the music sounds like shit. I'd much rather people pirate it than support these leeches
if you want to support artists you like, buy the music, ideally on bandcamp. if you do have to steam it, Deezer at the very least won't vandalize the audio
Third one in a little over two years. They say it's to keep up with inflation as if they're a retail store operating on razor thin margins and people accept that. Meanwhile, they're donating to fascist political parties and shafting artists by leveraging loopholes to pay out fewer royalties.
Just leaving this here from the excellent !PurchaseWithPurpose@lemmy.world 
Just saying; cancelling Spotify and changing to Qobuz takes five minutes. Sound quality is amazingly better, the curated recommendations are done by human beings that love music, and 'just works' with everything that Spotify does. (For us, anyway.) It's French, rather than Norwegian-American like Tidal is, if you're trying to stop spending money on everything US at the moment, too.
As much I despise Spotify, I'm trying out Qobuz and it's just not really it.
No folder organisation for playlists or albums.
No Linux application.
No lyrics.
No support for smart speakers.
No information linking to artist tours and merch.
No dedicated classical music app.
Generally lacking when it comes to non western artists.
Prides itself on providing high quality music, yet still only has lower quality masters for some artists compared to Apple Music, Tidal, and even Spotify.
I want to love it, like the way it loves and respects the music industry, with it's special magazine etc, but it's just not it.
Lazy doormat Spotify users: "Okay... but this is the LAST, LAST, LAST TIME FOR REAL. Do it again and there'll be a hashtag and a series of Tiktok memes!"
Let's say it together: Enshittification
It's been long underway for Spotify; raising prices is just the lastest step.
Ditched Spotify and bought myself a galleon and a tricorner hat instead. Haven't looked back.
Lidarr + Navidrome + Feishin + Metube
Mullvad for acquiring, TailScale and Symfonium for listening while away from home
This sounds like a lot of setup but probably took a few hours in total to set up the various docker images and get them working together.
I spend my saved money on vinyls, official merch, and SoundCloud or BandCamp purchases for my local library.
A few hours, when you know what you're doing. A few month when you have to figure it out, and maybe even then, it won't work, or you'll have lost a lot of money trying.
This should be a lot easier to do, than it is
anything to sustain the hateful joe roegan podcasts on the platform.
I'm paying £20/m for a lossless family plan from Deezer... That's how they get you 😭. Now I'd have to apologize to my family members if I took away their subscription. Used to be around £17 when I started a few years back.
I do not recommend getting a family plan.
It's cheaper if you have 5 friends and take the family plan. I'm paying ~€2 a month for the last couple of years.
of course there are ways round it, but that's not my point. Getting expensive
There is a ReVanced version of Spotify, for people who didn't already know. Block ads and get premium features for free: https://revanced.app/
(There's also YT Music ReVanced)
ive been using apple music for years, mainly like how for edm it tends to have highquality recorded live sets for all djs, and they are seperated instead of being one long continuous track, like youll get
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