There is no good music streaming platform but spotify is absolutely the most evil one and also has the distinction of sounding the shittiest - ThreadSky

eve6.bsky.social • 69 days ago

There is no good music streaming platform but spotify is absolutely the most evil one and also has the distinction of sounding the shittiest

Reposted from Dream Wilson

Spotify is gaming its own editorial playlists with tons of music it hires a small number of people to make for very little money and a severely limited license. Spotify doesn't care about artists, quite the opposite.

Comments

nyquil64.bsky.social•69 days ago

@tonedotaudio.bsky.social 🙏🤞

klnnurv.bsky.social•69 days ago

There is! Self-hosted Madsonic!

sarahj-ca.bsky.social•69 days ago

I've been using amazing music for a few years, i was considering going to tidal when the sub renews but I've heard some sketchy things about them too

They're all bad but which is the least worst that I can check out?

airwindows.com•69 days ago

The interesting thing about this is what happens after they blow past the 'trust thermocline' with fake music and/or AI music they own outright. If spotify becomes worthless and collapses, what can we do and how can we position ourselves to be where human listeners go post-collapse?

callmepancakes.bsky.social•69 days ago

This kinda shit is why it's 2024 and I'm fully back on my Soulseek shit downloading FLACs of music I now only own on vinyl after I trashed all my CDs 20 years ago.

What's old is new again.

dkppunk.bsky.social•69 days ago

Damn! This is the second time I’ve seen Soulseek mentioned in the last few days. I hadn’t thought about it in at least a decade. Looks like a sign to start up again.

I’m also switching back to physical media. Blue Ray, vinyl, and CD.

callmepancakes.bsky.social•69 days ago

Predatory streaming, albums sporadically disappearing from services, and the coming return to feudalism and civil war, all point to having physical medium for the hideout and digital media for when we're out patrolling for feral boomers & rightwingers.

ninja.style•69 days ago

So between tidal (probably smallest library) Apple Music which is probably similar streaming bit rate, what’s the move?

bradwenner.photo•69 days ago

Buy music and stream it yourself with Plexamp

ninja.style•69 days ago

This is too much for me. I had my entire library in google play music and they destroyed a ton of my niche music. I will probably never go back because I can’t rebuild the library I built before.

saintcetacean.bsky.social•69 days ago

I've been using TIDAL for a while and the library has grown really extensively over that time. Used to be kinda garbage now I find moooost things I'm looking for unless they're super niche or self-distro

thecojsz.bsky.social•69 days ago

it's wild bc i've managed to find stuff on tidal that spoitfy didn't even have a licence to, so for me, my subjective library has grown since i made the switch earlier this year

saintcetacean.bsky.social•69 days ago

I will say, until recently, nothing beat Spotify's discovery algorithms, but since the layoffs, it's really fallen off.
TIDAL still has some less than fantastic UX to polish, but it's come so far.

ninja.style•69 days ago

My girlfriend just signed up for tidal and a lot of the artists I couldn’t listen to before are there now. I’m gonna try to transfer my library and playlists.

saintcetacean.bsky.social•69 days ago

There is a site that'll do it, iirc!

celesticidal.bsky.social•69 days ago

this part pains me a ton, since I listen to a bunch of Japanese artists (I buy the albums, just stream for convenience at work) and very few of them were there last I checked. That and all the niche/self-distro I enjoy is the *only* thing keeping me from deleting my account in a heartbeat :(

saintcetacean.bsky.social•69 days ago

They added a bunch of music from a couple jpn bands I listen to, when did you last check?

celesticidal.bsky.social•69 days ago

I checked a few out tonight! Definitely a lot more than there used to be, though the discogs are spottier... I'll give it another try though, I desperately want to bail but just don't have the time or hd space to rip and curate and add albums to my phone like I used to 😔

saintcetacean.bsky.social•69 days ago

It's tough when you have a ton of time invested in the platform for sure, I still use my Spotify, but only like 30% of the time

timboslice1945.bsky.social•69 days ago

Never have used it or downloaded it. Rips off artists, which makes Spotify a rip off artist literally!

brittbaker.bsky.social•69 days ago

What works for me is buying the music (usually digital copy because I don't have room for any more CDs) and then streaming on YouTube Music. The artist gets $$$ twice and I get the convenience of just picking an artist I like and letting it play all day while I work.

informalogic.bsky.social•69 days ago

Jospeh Rogain, was my red flag for Spotify.
As far as I am concerned Spotify is a part of the problem giving that living “Enquirer Rag Magazine” a platform.
Then also pitting artists against each other. Yuck!

spewintothis.bsky.social•68 days ago

I have never spotified. But I still feel guilty for using Napster years ago

dexter-us.bsky.social•65 days ago

they don't really market me so it is just what I do and It seems that YouTube does some of the traffic along with some from the search engine. It is a convivence to the listeners though since they can create playlists.

joejoejoejoereilly.bsky.social•69 days ago

I want to hear it for myself:

Can someone drop a playlist example with "Perfect Fit Content"?

baltimoreoctopus.bsky.social•69 days ago

Doesn't everyone have a hard drive full of mp3s ripped from physical CDs, downloaded from Paste magazine monthly samplers 15 years ago, bought from iTunes, or stolen from Napster 25 years ago? You can listen on your computer or play them on your iPod classic.

airwindows.com•69 days ago

These days you could be doing 24/96 FLAC just as easily. If you can stream 4k video you could stream that, if you can store blu-rays and such you can store that. Doesn't have to be lossy-compressed though I too have those :)

fortgeek.bsky.social•69 days ago

Great...new format for me to look at (I, too have all my stuff in mp3, but still have all the vinyl, tape and cd stuff from before that)

airwindows.com•69 days ago

It's pretty much the same thing as AIFF or WAV except it does non-lossy compression, like if you zipped the audio. File sizes are considerably larger than lossy like mp3, but not as big as purely uncompressed stuff like WAV.

fortgeek.bsky.social•69 days ago

Right now, I'm leaning solidly on "good enough" for my mp3 collection, if only to keep my old friend Winamp employed:

kmagnacca.bsky.social•69 days ago

👍 haven’t updated iTunes in 10 years for fear they’ll screw it up and things won’t work.

pleasebecool.bsky.social•69 days ago

I initially read this as there’s no good music anymore while skimming and scrolling and was gonna say “listen to Viagra Boys”

tflamson.bsky.social•69 days ago

I probably should just take the W and not press my luck, but
Thoughts on Tidal?

yikyak.bsky.social•69 days ago

People with better ears with me say it's the same quality, and it pays artists the best (or nearly the best) per stream

danrar.bsky.social•69 days ago

It's got one of if not the highest payouts for artists.

braintrain.bsky.social•69 days ago

I've been told by friends who are in local bands that they get the most from tidal. With the caveat that it's still not much.

danrar.bsky.social•69 days ago

Tidal pays 4 times more than Spotify - more than a cent per play. But they have a significantly smaller user base than Spotify so you're playing to a smaller audience.

braintrain.bsky.social•69 days ago

Yeah but you usually have your music on all platforms so that argument is moot. If you move from Spotify to Tidal your favorite artists are effectively getting a raise.

braintrain.bsky.social•69 days ago

The still not much caveat I was mentioning was per play. A penny per play is still abysmal.

breitbert.bsky.social•69 days ago

I love tidal. Better algo than Spotify, imho. Sound quality is good. Onboarding makes the switch easy. Also used a second party service so I have all my playlists/albums from Spotify. Only down side is there’s no tidal app for my tv (not a big deal).

jaysid.bsky.social•69 days ago

I use iBroadcast, YouTube music, Bandcamp, and thrift CDs. I rip anything I can't find on those platforms from YouTube. I'm not great at picking up on audio fidelity so I'm naïve in that regard, but paying Spotify a ridiculous premium to be assholes no longer made sense to me.

bigspring.bsky.social•69 days ago

Qobuz is the way👍

jtunes6.bsky.social•69 days ago

I encountered one of these a few years ago. It was a jazz album with a group of musicians with fake names, but what's most incredibly galling is that they recorded jazz standards like say "September In The Rain" but changed the title to something like "Autumn Mood". But the lyrics and music were /1

jtunes6.bsky.social•69 days ago

the original lyrics and music! They just changed the name ostensibly to try to duck copyright fees? 🤦🏼‍♂️ Unbelievable. These people should be sued up the wazoo. I guess there's such a massive amount of content on there that no one can possibly police it? But things will get much worse with AI. /2

jtunes6.bsky.social•69 days ago

These recordings were done by actual musicians in the studio but now even that can be disrupted and they can generate these recordings with AI. Then they've perfectly cut out any involvement from musicians other than the person who's driving the AI tools. /3

mosswatson.bsky.social•69 days ago

Tidal sounds better and pays artists double for the same monthly price.

itsjakedrummond.bsky.social•69 days ago

Has the actual app itself improved at all? I tried it a couple years ago and it always loaded my playlists slower than the grass grows, regardless of signal strength.

mosswatson.bsky.social•69 days ago

I’ve never had any issues with it

itsjakedrummond.bsky.social•69 days ago

How long have you been using it? Maybe it's improved since I tried it.

mosswatson.bsky.social•69 days ago

About four years. The only thing I ever noticed is sometimes it will freeze up, but closing and restarting solve this immediately.

jetsetdori.to•69 days ago

I tried it earlier this year, I really wanted to switch over but I just did not like the app

itsjakedrummond.bsky.social•69 days ago

That's a bummer. I totally get that fighting back against capitalism comes with some slight inconvenience sometimes, but I fear there is a fine line between slight inconvenience and a flat-out worse product, and one of those things is much harder to convince the general public to tolerate.

janpieter.bsky.social•68 days ago

Same, I hate the Tidal app. But you might want to try 'Roon' in that case for a waaaay better app interface that's not dumbed down. It connects to Tidal (and Qobuz) *and* seamlessly combines it with your local music files into one media library 👌.

itsjakedrummond.bsky.social•68 days ago

I'll look into this!

raspberryseeds.bsky.social•68 days ago

All my homies hate shitify

arrannz.bsky.social•69 days ago

"Let's intentionally screw artists out of the few pennies we have deigned to grant them" seems like a cool way to run a company

stylo.bsky.social•68 days ago

apple music also pays peanuts but at least they have good playlists, good lyrics display, good background on the artists

tomforsyth.bsky.social•69 days ago

Correction - there was. It was called Zune/Xbox Music, and it was fantastic - even ethical! But Microsoft just couldn't be bothered.

virtualis.bsky.social•69 days ago

Any thoughts on how Neil Young is navigating this? The guy is legendary for thinking outside the A&R box. I believe he bucked spotify over Joe Rogan, but had to return.
https://neilyoungarchives.com/welcome

elnordon.bsky.social•69 days ago

The latest archives release is 15 albums long and $450 - the only way to legally listen to it without buying it is paying for his monthly archives service. There is something to be learned there for sure

virtualis.bsky.social•69 days ago

Well, Neil has the distinct advantage of having reached critical mass with the volume of his work, since what? The 1970's? The monthly archives service seems reasonably priced for what you get.

elnordon.bsky.social•69 days ago

Really anybody with a following as big is wise to do the same. It’s just money on the table. I am curious how many subscribers he has

elnordon.bsky.social•69 days ago

Actually 25,000 subscribers it appears

https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/news/neil-young-archives-streaming-hd-music-946192/

virtualis.bsky.social•69 days ago

This:
"...$600,000 — per year, remember — is roughly equivalent (going off a reported $0.0037 blended per-stream average) to the payment an artist could expect from 162 million streams on Spotify. Neil Young’s biggest all-time track on Spotify is Heart of Gold… with 132 million lifetime streams."

bengiff.bsky.social•69 days ago

Been using Tidal for a while now

joshuajkeller.bsky.social•69 days ago

Finding nothing but faith in nothing

thejoshp.bsky.social•69 days ago

Hopefully SiriusXM is better for artists. Been paying for their service since 2005.

terminalghost.bsky.social•69 days ago

Been YouTube Music for a couple of years now, quite enjoy it

danrar.bsky.social•69 days ago

Tidal gives the highest payout per play.

ctborum.bsky.social•69 days ago

And it sounds great, to me anyway, I'm not an expert

danrar.bsky.social•69 days ago

Not only does Tidal have lossless audio, it has high resolution audio available. If an artist uploads 24-bit 192 kHz it'll play it for users. It'll also support Dolby Atmos surround mixes.

bonysoprano.bsky.social•69 days ago

Yeah, but since that Twitter dipshit is in charge now, I give it like eight months before I have to switch again.

disunion.bsky.social•69 days ago

It’s been 2 years since Block has owned majority of Tidal

bonysoprano.bsky.social•68 days ago

Well sure, but it hasn't been two years since Twitter dipshit said that it needs to "build like a startup again". https://fortune.com/2024/10/30/jack-dorsey-layoffs-streaming-music-app-tidal-block-leaked-email/

Surely, nothing bad could come off this

jennwa.bsky.social•69 days ago

Napster is up there, too. That's what I use and it feels really full circle, after downloading for free in the 90s and aughts

cones.bsky.social•69 days ago

i always think about making the switch to one of these but i never feel like i can have faith it's going to last. it's such a time/effort investment to set up a library and playlists and what have you and it just feels like there is no room for companies to stay "decent" for very long now of days

cones.bsky.social•66 days ago

in the meantime, since we have a family account and my kids would menendez me if i cancelled it, I'm just buying stuff off bandcamp here and there as well. to keep my conscience clean

exostrologist.bsky.social•69 days ago

I will never do business with the husk of napster that's now inhabited by Best Buy like it's an Edgar suit.

aaronmamparo.com•68 days ago

Tidal is the way

rocvillan.bsky.social•69 days ago

Even Bandcamp? Always seemed lile the best option to me.

dennismusic.bsky.social•69 days ago

Spotify is a disaster for musicians. In fact all are.

airbagabe.bsky.social•69 days ago

True about there being no good platform. I used Tidal for a while and the app totally sucked, now I use Amazon and it's flooded with the same AI and bullshit artists as Spotify and the playlists all suck, only redeeming quality is the sound quality

elnordon.bsky.social•69 days ago

I think the Tidal app is fine, so maybe it has improved since you used it. The sound quality sure is mind blowing for a streaming service though

airbagabe.bsky.social•69 days ago

Maybe I'll switch back for a bit. I remember finding the playlist management and queue particularly annoying

janpieter.bsky.social•68 days ago

Try a combination of Tidal and 'Roon' 👌, so you don't ever have to use the dumbed-down Tidal app again while still able to access their library. Also: it combines seamlessly with your library of local mp3s, their algorithms are smarter, and their interface works great for classical music 👍:

elnordon.bsky.social•68 days ago

Thanks! Will give it a try

elnordon.bsky.social•69 days ago

Spotify will always be better for playlists and worse for sound quality

foxthingsup.bsky.social•69 days ago

I still love and use Pandora

jons253.bsky.social•69 days ago

Their UI sucks, too. Is Pandora any better as a compsny? Because at least their UI is relatively easy to navigate.

merchantsofmisery.bsky.social•68 days ago

Soulseek + dedicated mp3 player will set you free.

broberts.lol•69 days ago

That was the craziest thing for me switching over to Apple Music recently. I used to be a lossless/FLAC snob when I was pirating in my teens, but I had gotten used to Spotify's abysmal quality in the last decade without noticing

joedinardo.bsky.social•69 days ago

I believe the real takeaway from this is that EDM is bullshit

braintrain.bsky.social•69 days ago

whut?

another-gamerguy.bsky.social•69 days ago

Cancelled my spotify and I feel even better about doing so

dekonj.bsky.social•69 days ago

My ass is still on Pandora lol

notatrumpcard.bsky.social•69 days ago

Ikr, I actually kinda love Pandora 😂

elnordon.bsky.social•69 days ago

If you want your music picked for you, pandora is still number one. I have always been suspicious of Spotify playlists

tomnob.bsky.social•69 days ago

Best anti-Spotify grift: dude made a trove of crappy music, set up a rack or two of computers to play nothing but his crappy music on Spotify, collected a million dollars

tonymanzullo.bsky.social•69 days ago

Actual question, purchasing physical media is probably the ideal for sound quality, but if people are using a streaming service which one is the best in terms of supporting artists $$?

toasty.cx•69 days ago

I THINK that Tidal pays the biggest amount to artists but it IS still a relatively small number tbh, all the streaming is exploitative in some way or another so you're basically doing harm reduction

only truly "ethical" way is to buy directly from the artist and slap it on an MP3 player afaik

toasty.cx•69 days ago

(they do still sell mp3 players too! sony has a few walkmen of varying "kinda expensive" to "holy fuck" levels lol)

max-fan.bsky.social•69 days ago

Literally steal their music and buy something from their web site if they have merch there and it will support them more than any streaming service over the course of your entire life

bradwenner.photo•69 days ago

I just buy vinyl and pirate digital files. Way more of my money goes to actual artists this way.

saintcetacean.bsky.social•69 days ago

TIDAL is probably your best bet, they pay about 1.2 cents per stream, which is not nearly enough, but is more than all the other major apps. They also recently realigned their premium plans to consolidate the features into one level, but kept it at the monthly rate of the lower plan.

saintcetacean.bsky.social•69 days ago

They also have the best audio quality options for streaming.

That being said the out and out best way would be to buy direct either physical or Bandcamp downloads.

pwr2dppl.bsky.social•69 days ago

Love when a longheld irrational grudge turns out to be correct.

sanefacade.bsky.social•69 days ago

Had no clue. I didn’t start using Spotify until a few months ago (and barely paid attention to them before that).

Welp, closing that account.

beebatspiderlily.bsky.social•69 days ago

Spotify has bad podcasts.

tehb0x.bsky.social•67 days ago

It’s got some good ones - my main issue is that they apparently have video that goes along with it - and you’re unable to disable them completely. I’ve got a 12 year old who just confessed to watching video game streamers for over a year on his account. I didn’t even know the vids were there!

beebatspiderlily.bsky.social•67 days ago

Huh, interesting. They seem somewhat harder to find though.

albertbalaguer.bsky.social•69 days ago

From the ignorance: which one the best music platform?

wisetom85.bsky.social•69 days ago

I think Tidal pays out the most to Artists (even though it's still a fraction of a penny). Then maybe Amazon is second?

exostrologist.bsky.social•69 days ago

elnordon.bsky.social•69 days ago

I just want to say thanks for bringing a convo about music to this app. Breath of fresh air, even if it’s about these Swedish asshats

witchyplantmom.bsky.social•69 days ago

Yeah that’s why I have Pandora and Apple Music, I found all the podcasts I listen to have a YouTube channel too so really no need for Spotify anymore.

docanon.bsky.social•69 days ago

Overcast I believe is the best podcast app. Runs light, plentiful options, easy to use, and runs in CarPlay. The GOAT.

witchyplantmom.bsky.social•69 days ago

May have to check that out, I do love my true crime podcasts lol

exostrologist.bsky.social•69 days ago

I interviewed for a job at spotify as a data engineer nearly a decade ago. When the "test" they gave me was about airline pricing, and not effectively serving people the right music, I fucked right off

ravincool.bsky.social•69 days ago

I've been team Pandora forever

archdruidandres.bsky.social•69 days ago

I never caught on with Spotify but what’s your take on Pandora

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