Wow didn't know that.

I also newly started boycotting them for the same reasons. Plus they don't give enough to the musicians, and support AI music.

Been off Spotify since they have Rogan his platform, which contributed to Trump also.

Highly illegal.

thats when i cancelled as well. this guy seems like such a fucknut

Not to mention giving 100s of millions of dollars to fund Joe Rogan and his extreme right-wing propaganda.

Same, took some legwork to get files for my 700-song library, but we did it. Fuck 'em.

IIRC Tidal and Qobuz should be good alternatives

Napster, bearshare

If you're technically inclined, self-host navidrome or jellyfin.

If you just want music and don't care about the streaming part, bandcamp (although it does have some basic streaming I believe).

If you want streaming and aren't technically inclined, Tidal.

I have been using Deezer because it was local for me, France. At the beginning you could upload your own collection to share with others, it was fun. Now it's basically the same as the others, I think it pays artists a little bit more than Spotify. Also just learned that it is now majorly owned by some US investment fund. 🫠 At least it's not directly funding terminators yet?

Tidal is cheaper and better quality, Deezer is good, too.

Funkwhale

Qobuz

Qobuz is great. It's a french company, they pay the artists well and the music is in high quality

This is where I'd have recommended deezer, but they shit the bed on their mobile app.

+1 for tidal

I jumped to Tidal many years ago because Spotify could not be bothered to provide high quality output. Yes, you can ear the difference, even on shitty gear.

For the stuff I could not get on either platform I started buying CDs on Discogs and ripping them to FLAC.

Edit: ear, not eat.

Apple music believe it or not. Nice selection and interface. Works on Apple devices as well as android. Has a high bitrate and supports aptx on android. Don't think they have a native app for windows or Linux, though, so you'd have to use the web version.

Being able to upload to Google Play Music was such a great feature. Honestly though, maybe it's best that they killed it when they did. That way it can live on in memory as the example of what a music streaming service should be like... instead of becoming an enshittified zombie like spotify is today.

Or because they pay artist way less than any one else, while having lower quality audio.

Yeah - been talking about doing so for quite a long time, and then signing up to a Qobuz family plan, downloading all their apps, and cancelling everything Spotify has taken all of five minutes. Hardly even interrupted the album we were listening to via Chromecast. There's a lesson to be learned somewhere.

Qobuz' recommendations and albums-of-the-week actually look good, too. Like an actual music enthusiast has picked things out, rather than Spotify's slop.

You're way to late then too. The perfect time to act on this was back in Iraq with that prince dick head with xi.

Also we all should have taken a harder stance at celebrity using these private security companies. Drake's in Toronto blocking roads so he can get all 16 armored cars on to the 401.

Lots of people really defend the stuff by saying "look how much money they bring to the city, we can ignore it" but at the end of the day, it's growing a new industry. I don't get why we don't call it out more like these fucks need to wait in traffic like the rest of us. I don't care who they are or how much money they make. Roads are a public space and shared by everyone equally.

You're saving an already low-quality stream into a lossy format. Just use Soulseek.

I think one of the most toxic things on Lemmy is the prevalence of judging normies for using incredibly popular services and ascribing it to a character defect instead of life just being too complex for most people to be able to prioritize exploring more ethical technology choices.

Be less lazy

"Damn this sucks, I'm doing the thing"

"Hey you lazy stupid fuck, go back in time and do it sooner"

Why is the Internet like this?

Got 80GB of music on my phone, tried Spotify once, it was all live versions....

Yeah, it seems they also didn't mention that it's a European defense company, not a US defense company.

Europe is investing a lot into defense now and it's actually a good thing that they're moving away from dependence on the US defense industrial complex.

Spotify sucks tho. But that's a separate thing.

Clickbait article.

thiel has an obsession with lotr, so he named all his evil companies after various lotr themes.

Probably. Rashism is real.

Europe used the specter of Russia to justify it's dive into militant fascism the last time too.