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Friendly reminder that Tidal costs the same, has a bigger catalog, does not pester you with podcasts, has lossless quality audio and it includes lyrics
Is there a Tidal linux player? Or a Tidal for Roku? Those are the two things I couldn't find that made me choose Spotify.
Edit: just checked again and it's 3 times more expensive than Spotify in my region.
Edit 2nd: they list Linux as a non supported web browser. They don't support Max quality on Firefox or Safari. But have a dedicated free 90 day plan with the Humane AI pin. Lol, tf is this company?
Re: tidal on Linux, if you use Arch there are a couple of options in the AUR. I don't know about other distros.
linux as a non supported web browser
I'm confused about this one, lol. I did not know that Linux was a browser rofl
I'm just as confused as you are. No idea why they decided to list Linux specifically on the list of web browsers and only to mention it is not supported (in an otherwise list of supported things).
On Linux: it's only a third party electron wrapper. No different than Spotify but at least Spotify officially provides support to their app. Everything else is janky or hacky third party CLI utilities.
Friendly reminder that Bandcamp puts money directly in the pockets of artists, and on the first Friday of every month (which for May is today), they waive their fees and 100% goes to the artist.
Bandcamp has been great but I fear the enshittification coming. Half the staff was fired by Epic Games last year and then it was sold to a music conglomerate.
Epic Games bought Bandcamp in March 2022 for $273 million
[Bandcamp co-founder Ethan] Diamond was not aware of Epic’s plan to sell Bandcamp to Songtradr until as soon as the night before the deal was announced.
During the weeks that followed, Bandcamp’s union, which represented about half of the company at the time, called on Songtradr to voluntarily recognize the union while it also negotiated with Epic over how the layoffs to union members would be handled. For example, the game publisher said that no employee who received an offer from Songtradr would remain eligible for Epic’s severance package.
The two companies agreed to an “asset sale” of Bandcamp rather than a “stock sale.” This meant that Songtradr was only acquiring the technology and platform, rather than the company as a whole, including its staff.
“Of those laid off, 40 were in the union bargaining unit out of a total 67 members,” it wrote. “None of the eight (8) democratically elected bargaining team members received a job offer..."
Small sidenote, tidal lossless is double the price
They have recently changed that. Lossless is now part of the basic plan
They have a bigger catalog? I kinda assumed that Spotify had the biggest catalog by far because they're the most popular one.
Really who cares? The free tier is shit and has always been shit. That's the point of the free tier, to get you to pay.
Previously they didn't even have a free tier, now they do and it's free. Of course not every feature exists and especially not a feature like lyrics which isn't essential and Spotify has to pay extra for.
The backlash is generally against all enshitification.
You get a useful free plan. Make it useless over time to convince people to pay for a plan. Make THAT plan useless over time to make people pay for the more expensive plan.. repeat until capitalism ends.
That's why people care. Eg: see all subscription services ever
And enshittification continues...
Honestly, what does this change? For paid users nothing, and the free version was always unusable with you not being able to individually select songs.
If you search 'xmanager github' you will make a Spotify shareholder cry so please please don't.
I thought this meant on top of Premium and I was about to be pissed.
But honestly, Spotify is one of the only companies where I don’t feel like my experience has gotten noticeably worse over my time using it.
In general, I feel like the music streaming market is in much better shape than TV streaming. Price increases have been modest, there's no fighting for exclusive streaming rights (that I'm aware of). I pirate all of my movies and shows, but Spotify's alright, for me it's worth paying. And even if it turned to shit tomorrow, Tidal and Apple music are pretty good too.
My experience got noticably worse that time they tried to make their UI look like tictok. I cancelled and deleted my account and have been on tidal ever since.
I don’t bother with streaming services anymore. I set up Navidrome on my home server for my music library and love it.
Also, I may be in the minority here, but I decided to start paying artists directly for their music. Whether it be buying a CD at a show or buying off of Bandcamp. I didn’t want most of my money going to Apple/Spotify, I want my favorite artists to at least get something for their hard work …
Yes, it’s more expensive if you expect to have the entire Spotify catalog at a moment’s notice, but I may be old fashioned in that I like listening to albums front to back, and tend to listen to a single album on loop for a long time. After I’ve worn out that album, then I’ll move onto another one. Buying about an album a month has worked out for me, which is about the cost of these subscription services (I know I’m definitely in the minority here in the way I listen to my library, but figured I’d share anyway).
It's even funnier because the lyrics are provided by MusixMatch
And Spotify pays them…?
I'm still holding onto Bandcamp and hoping they don't enshittify. It's even Bandcamp Friday today where they give their share to the musicians.
I like it because I build a library of music I keep, so some months I don't pay anything at all. But depending on what you listen to it might not be the best. I still like it more than renting music.
I tried Apple Music recently, and while I wasn't impressed by the platform, one thing I was legitimately taken aback by was how much effort they put into the lyrics. The little animations as the lyrics follow the song, where the words move in different ways based on the song in question, it's really aesthetically pleasing.
Some of the animations definitely feel programmed by employees who are genuine fans of the artist; it doesn't feel generic or auto generated. The little ways the animations move along with certain inflections in the singer's delivery, or react to minor shifts in tone. There's some care being taken with them, song by song. I was legitimately impressed, and I seldom ever have anything nice to say about Apple.
It wasn't enough to keep me paying for it but I genuinely enjoyed it quite a bit.
Spotify promotes and forces you to use DRM. Even if you pay, the content is not yours and you are forces to use malware
I don’t know why anyone pays for Spotify anymore when there are others that are less and are lossless and include shit they are now taking away.
There just isnt though. Spotify had the best UX of any music streaming service for the longest time and only recently have they started shooting themselves in the foot.
Lossless is pointless and not a selling point compared to interface and usability across hardware. Tidal is probably it's closest competitor, but it still doesnt have the integration Spotify does.
Lossless is pointless
I wouldn't say its pointless, but it really doesn't help much considering the quality of your average headset/earpieces.
Even in blind tests with high end gear, people often mistake 320kbps MP3s as the lossless track. Compression is incredible these days and isn't inherently a bad thing like it used to be, it saves a lot of space and bandwidth with minimal to no perceivable difference in quality.
And as you point out, not even worth considering with average equipment.
Even as an Audiophile, I agree, FLAC is a waste of bandwidth and disk space unless you’re remixing tracks (which most people don’t do!)
Spotify had the best UX of any music streaming service for the longest time
Not if you actually like have controls and managing music. They've been actively fucking their UX's usability for years. Options just disappearing or being moved to hidden places, garbage shoved in front you constantly, etc.
My biggest problem is the censure. I'm in my car, "hey google play teenage dirt bag on spotify". Sounds great until the "her boyfriends a dick he brings a [silence]. And he'd simply kick my ass..."
Or Jay-Z story of OJ : "rich jigga, poor jigga, house jigga, field jigga"
What? Seriously loses all context and meaning.
Spotify redefining the message of whatever was happening... Some cracker ass Swedish company censuiring the n-word when used by an artform that is legitimate and on purpose.
That's why I collect vinyl. Can't change that shit up on my listening it. It's the way it is. If Jay Z wanted to use the N word then I want to hear it like it is. Not some bullshit "jigga" shit wtf is that? Isn't it denying his message?
The shitshow will only get worse. Own your music instead!