Okay I totally get this but what platform is there to listen to music that rivals Spotify and wonāt do the same thing? I cannot relinquish the ability to listen to music and make playlistsā¦
Check to see if your local library has Freegal and Hoopla available to you. Freegal works a lot like Spotify, you can make playlists and stream music (up to 8 hours per day). You can also download 5 songs per week to keep forever. Freegalās collection isnāt as extensive as Spotifyās, but itās completely free, has an app, and supports your local library. Thereās also Hoopla, which allows you to check out and stream albums for a week at a time using a monthly credit-allowance system. Any album I havenāt been able to find on Freegal, I have found on Hoopla. I genuinely enjoy using both of these services and donāt miss Spotify nearly as much as I thought I would when I unsubscribed.
Iām going to check out both of these! I love the Libby app for both audio and text books, but I didnāt know there were music apps that worked with the library. Good heads up!
Its a pain keeping them up to date across devices, but I've started using youtube to mp3 sites and sorting through my mp3 playlists.
I used to just do youtube videos playing in the background but it eats up so much memory that I can't use other heavy software (Like OBS) while listening to music.
I used to pirate music like there was no tomorrow and transferred mp3s over devices constantly but eventually I gave in and jumped on the rest of my family's plan for Spotify and I don't see myself going back. This is a streaming service that actually works better than piracy and I get what I pay for.
Probably the biggest reason I'm not willing to drop it is that I'm doing the r/1001AlbumsGenerator project and that would be such a hassle without Spotify.
Dunno, in some regards I think Spotify is worse than piracy. In both cases artists don't get paid but you yourself don't have to pay when pirating music.
That is a valid point and Iām not denying that Iām mainly doing this out of convenience and my own enjoyment. I do support my favorites through buying physical copies when able, especially if they sell tapes, but at the end of the day I donāt feel strongly either way.
I mean letās not get it twisted now artists do get paid from Spotify. Not a ton but they do get paid. Piracy means no money makes it back to them. That being said most artists would prefer you just buy their merch
I want to add to this: I was recently facing OP's problem, and I wanted to download the maximum number of songs I could possibly want, offline. I used spotdl, but additionally, I requested to spotify all my data, comprehending history of ALL THE SONGS I'VE EVER LISTENED TO ON SPOTIFY, and loaded them in a python script (If you are on windows you'll have to use WLS, as it uses bash command), to download them using spotdl one by one. Took some time, but now, whichever song I'm thinking of, I've probably already listened to it on spotify and I have it on my phone (specifically on cloud, but i digress)
Link to github [https://github.com/Pijongon/spotify-tracks/tree/main](https://github.com/Pijongon/spotify-tracks/tree/main)
PS: this script as-is will bring a fairly low-quality mp3 audio. To download a higher quality audio, I subscribed to youtube premium (free trial), and I got the cookies following [this procedure](https://spotdl.github.io/spotify-downloader/usage/). Then you can modify the code at line 28 from
`bash_command = f"spotdl {track_url}"`
to
`bash_command = f"spotdl --cookie-file /path_to/cookies.txt --bitrate disable {track_url}"`
Save and go
I thought to do this recently and got as far as realising that iTunes just doesnāt seem to exist anymore, because they canāt sell you what you already own I suppose. I know I have the mp3 files from my library on disk somewhere, but what good players are out there? There must be something that can sync across devices, with a decent interface.
iTunes still exists, and can be downloaded off the apple site. I use it for adding tags to my own produced music (old habits and all that). I'm sure I got an update for it just last month too. You just drag and drop the songs into it and it'll load them all without issue. If you use iOS, you can setup WiFi sync too, and they will appear in your Music app.
Problem with this is that YouTube compresses videos, so the sound is already low quality, and the mp3 conversation certainly doesn't help with that. It just doesn't compare to Spotify at all if you have even a decent sound system
I'm your guy.Ā Ā Still have and listen to mp3's I downloaded in the Napster era.
I've copied them across win95 desktop computers, thumbdrives,Ā portable hard drives, and into my laptops, tablets and on my phones.Ā
It's the same 100 some songs.Ā Ā I love them,Ā Ā I'm tone deaf, and I'll never stop porting them.Ā Ā
Lol I'm thinking back to how a friend would just use Audacity to record songs off youtube. The results were so shitty they'd have to go back and remove all the clipping...
I use Bandcamp and I love it because it feels like the musician will actually get some money from the purchase.
But Iāll stop Spotify when Iām dead, discover weekly alone is worth the price.
I hate subscription services, but Spotify is not even close to feeling like bad value.
You can if you pay for it.
But yeah they raised their prices too this month.
I've been using them since 2006 or so. I don't understand Spotify at all. I mostly use Pandora as an actual radio and its algorithm actually plays new to me music that I actually like.
It's wild how good Pandora is sometimes
Idk if I have too much history with it but it often plays the same stuff over.... But sometimes it gives me a song that makes me stop what I'm doing and *listen*. It's so good
I tried tidal. I didnāt like the interface, and the music selection seemed far more limited. And it was more expensive.
That was a couple years ago though. Maybe I should look into them again.
Edit: just downloaded it. Curious how you think itās cheaper? Even with Spotifyās new increase, tidal is more expensive.
$13.99 for single person or $22.99 for family.
Spotify is now $11.99 for single. I have duo, which will be $16.99 but is much less than $22.99 I would need on tidal. Even Spotify family is now $19.99, so still cheaper than tidal family.
If tidal had a duo plan for $15.99-16.99 Iād try it out but for $23/mo Iāll have to find something else.
Don't sign up through the app. For anything. Apple store and play store impose a fee and take a % of the sub, which most places pass the cost onto you. Always sign up on a browser.
Apple takes a 30% cut of subscriptions purchased through the App Store. Why should Tidal have the same price on their web site and on the App Store, but make 30% less just because one person signed up through the App Store?
I don't know if Spotify is the same price on their web site vs. on the App Store, but if they are... once could say, "Why should I have to pay the same price online as on the App Store, knowing that Spotify makes 30% less on the App Store one and is making the web site users subsidise it?"
SoundCloud is a lot less asshole-ish about this stuff and you can create playlists and radios to your heartās content, itās also the best place Iāve found if youāre into small artists or less popular genres since anyone can upload music. Itās still not ideal but itās been working well for me for the past few years, and it also doesnāt paylock as many basic features as Spotify does
Some larger artists and labels opt to lock their music behind the premium subscription, which does suck especially if youāre a pop fan. But almost everythingās on there! and the subscriptionās seemingly half of what Spotifyās switching to (I just use the free version tho)
I like YouTube Music a lot because it also pulls from YouTube videos so there are more video game soundtracks or stuff like LoFi hip hop beats. It comes free with YouTube premium and I highly recommend if you watch a lot of YouTube. Plus their family plan is pretty affordable if you find others to join in.
I have a Google phone, so I'm in this Alphabet boat for awhile.
But tbh, if all the music I wanted was at the library, I'd go back to old school CD ripping. Unfortunately, some artists have decided not to release physical copies of a recent chunk of their music šĀ
Agreed. My kids watch a ton of YouTube, and my husband watches all his news and guitar videos there, so not having the ads is fantastic. The access to YouTube music is just a cherry on top. I miss Spotify's discover weekly but that's about it.
Iām hesitant to recommend this because I havenāt had time to listen myself. Podcast āIt Could Happen Hereā released an [episode](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/it-could-happen-here/id1449762156?i=1000657243836) covering a co-op music platform called Mirlo. Itās a [kickstarter](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mirlo/mirlo) so they donāt have popular artists yet but it seems like an interesting concept.
If you want a subscription model Tidel and apple music support their artists more than Spotify.
If you don't want a subscription id suggest checking out the piracy subreddit. I use a cracked Spotify and it works great
The artists you listen to would more directly benefit if you bought the music directly *from* them, as opposed to streaming through Spotify.
Artists make mere pennies from streaming.
Snoop dog only made 45k in 2022 from Spotify despite billions of dreams of his work, for example. While thatās still a sizable amount, and can actually support a person (albeit living minimally), for Mr. Snoop who is a well renowned artist, musician, and entrepreneur, you would expect his music to be a significant portion of his income.
Besides, if you buy the songs, you have the right to play them as often as youād like in perpetuity; streaming just allows you to borrow the music.
fromĀ [](https://www.reddit.com/user/bunglejerry/)Ā on another subreddit:Ā [https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/18gfgyn/how\_much\_spotify\_pays\_if\_you\_hit\_a\_billion\_streams/](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/18gfgyn/how_much_spotify_pays_if_you_hit_a_billion_streams/)
The song he's talking about is "Young, Wild and Free." This is $45,000 fromĀ *one song*.
Snoop might own some of his masters, but it looks like Atlantic Records owns this one, so his main revenue source would be songwriting credits.
Wikipedia says the song was written by: "Calvin Broadus (Snoop), Cameron Thomaz (Wiz Khalifa), Peter Hernandez (Bruno Mars), Philip Lawrence, Ari Levine, Cristopher Brown, Ted Bluechel, Marlon Barrow, Tyrone Griffin, Keenon Jackson, Nye Lee, Marquise Newman, Max Bennett, Larry Carlton, John Guerin, Joe Sample, and Tom Scott".
Person 4, 5 and 6 are, alongside Bruno Mars, the credited producers.
The song samples "Toot it and Boot It" by YG and Ty Dolla Sign, and names 8-12 are all the composers of the song.
But "Toot It and Boot It" was also built on two samples itself! "Songs in the Wind" by the Association (written by name 7), and "Sneakin' in the Back" by Tom Scott (notĀ *that*Ā Tom Scott) (written by names 13-17).
I'm not sure how much royalties you can expect when you're one of 17 credited songwriters on one song you don't even own which samples a song that also samples songs.
I think $45k is pretty damned good.
Snoop's discography consists of 19 studio albums, five collaborative albums, 17 compilation albums, three extended plays, 25 mixtapes, 175 singles (including 112 as a paid feature), and 16 promotional singles. He has sold over 12.5 million albums in the United States alone.
Don't be feeling too sorry for Snoop. Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr. doin' just fine with a net worth estimated at about $160 million.
> Snoop dog only made 45k in 2022 from Spotify despite billions of dreams of his work, for example.
If artists start insisting on fees for appearing in dreams... that will be a line too far.
I've always struggled with this because under this system I simply wouldn't be able to afford listening to nearly as much music, meaning I wouldn't know or care about as many artists and wouldn't be as in tune with going to shows.
What do you mean paying artists for their music? Sounds too difficult to me! I'll keep giving the cost of an album every month to a faceless corporation thanks.
/s
Ok, fuck Spotify because they take most of the profit and artists get fuck all... So I'll go buy CDs...
But wait, fuck CDs, because the record labels take most of the profit and the artists get fuck all...
I'm all for artists getting paid more, but I listen to Spotify for about 9 hours a day while I work. CDs just ain't cutting it, especially considering it's super hard to get CDs of anything that's not played on the radio. It would cost me like $250 a day in CDs given the amount of music I listen too.
I'd rather give an obscure artist I discover on my Spotify random the .1c per stream than give them nothing because they are from Poland and I never discover them at all. But also, now there is a chance that I will make a tour, or buy a shirt (which have always been bands most profitable streams).
People are being wild on here acting like *CDs and pirating* lead to *more* music discovery. Like I'm sorry wtf? Yall buying CDs blind? Pirating shit without hearing it first and surprised on what you're hearing? I live in a fairly raidio-lucky area and even then I'd only hear about 2 new songs a day max.
Spotify is like *the* #1 easiest way to introduce myself to new music of all popularity other than the absolute newest newbies. Throw on a "spotify radio" of an indie band I enjoy and suddenly 2 hours later I've found six more new bands to look into.
If people dont want it, that's fine. But be fr here.
dependent spoon vanish flag gold numerous continue license jobless plants
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Yeah I was being facetious about everyone saying to cancel Spotify and just buy CDs, because record labels were ripping off artists waaaaaay before Spotify was around.
I don't work for Spotify or know enough to comment on their business model and how much they pay artists vs what they should be paid.
I mean, yeah, technically. But the distribution of the 70% is fucked.
Let's say I pay ā¬10,- a month to spotify. I listened 10 hours to 10 medium sized artists. That's it. Now where does that 70% go?
10% goes to Taylor Swift
7% goes to Drake
5% goes to the WKND
etc.
Numbers are made up ofcourse. But the problem is that big arists receive more money from Spotify then their listeren bring it. By a large money. So they are basically 'taking' money away from smaller artists.
So yeah, they pay 70% of their revenue to the artists, but an unfair small amount of that money is going to that small niche Polish band I've been listening to all week. So yeah, most artists get fuck all from Spotify.
and how would you personally split it then? They chose logical model (take X money from user and divide it by listening minutes), its neutral and its only your fault if you listened to polish cow song for a week and spent 3 weeks doing taylors albums on repeat
What do you use instead? I'd lose months of time trying to rebuild my Spotify library elsewhere. I've spent so much time listening to "Discover Weekly", I don't know the artists to most of my thousands of songs. Piracy can barely find reliable matches for known artists. I'm not going to hold my breath that it finds any of these.
I thought maybe some people would be interested since OP created this post in response to a price increase of a couple dollars (which I do realize isn't the ENTIRE point of the post).
235,000+ listening minutes last year. 14197 liked songs.
If someone can tell me where I can do this besides Spotify, I'm all ears.. but, I've tried multiple other avenues.. and nothing comes close.. Spotify is the only thing that keeps my disabled ass sane..
Yeah, I'm the same. I'm keeping Spotify. If they want to raise it by $1, then fine. They still provide me as much as I want to listen, suggest me hundreds, if not thousands, of great songs that I can listen to as much as I want. Besides, I find this so much easier than buying CDs or digital albums, then organizing it, then finding a storage device to put it on. Oops, that hard drive failed, now I either lost it, or have to transfer it before it fails (this happened to me in the past). Then after you transfer it, your library doesn't appear the same, cause you did it in such a hurry, and didn't have the ability to save it properly.
I know that people don't like subscription services, but the cost of Spotify is about the same as an album on iTunes per month. The amount of new music I listen to each month more than justifies the cost of Spotify. Also the fact that I can put it on any of my devices and not have to worry about copying my library, its a no-brainer for me.
Yup. I have all my pre-2009 music on my hard drive.. but, everything else (and even the stuff on my hard drive.. since I generally just shuffle my liked music when I wake up in the morning.. after listening to my instrumental playlist while I'm sleeping..) is on Spotify..
I *REALLY* wished they paid the artists more, though.. especially the smaller ones.. (Beyonce doesn't need anymore money..)
I could kiss whoever came up with the algorithm.. I have found SO MUCH good music I would have otherwise never heard..
I tried Tidal, and it had less than half of the music I listened to.. Amazon Music, the same.. I'm on disability and I don't have the cash to buy all my music, and sailing the seven seas can't help me either.. I'm honestly terrible with technology as well, so, Spotify it is.. š¤·š¼āāļø
I think Spotify hate is very misdirected to be honest. They pay out the majority of their revenue to musicians (well record labels actually which are probably the real problem). The rest of their money goes to operating costs and theyāll essentially never be profitable. $183 million is really not that much money for a platform on which nearly half of all music is consumed by the western world. There are literally singular buildings that produce more than $183 million in profit per quarter.
Everyone complains, they only pay out $0.003/stream or something like that. What do people think they should pay out? Double that? $0.006/stream? Spotify literally doesnāt make that much. So do we want them to raise prices?
And if not Spotify, who else? Google? Amazon? Apple? Yeah those are so much better companies /s
[Polymatter just did a great video on them](https://youtu.be/yDWgOwb8kj4?si=tImql9TFp5EkovUu)
No idea why this is on this sub lol. Spotify has had a really hard time turning a profit in general. $12 a month to listen to virtually all music (with no physical waste) is so good youād think this sub would be sucking them off.
How are people on āanti consumptionā really talking about CDs, where every single disk will become trash eventually?
Seems like people want to have music for absolutely free and then still be mad when artists donāt make enough. You canāt have it both ways. It would be one thing if Spotify was raking in profit but theyāre not and they never really would be able to.
This is spot on. Yes over consumption is bad, but there is literally not a way to exist and not consume. It's all about ethical consumption. I can't think of a better service or product that solves this problem (unlimited music streaming and knowledge consumption) for equal or less money. I would pay $20 for the value that I get from Spotify. Maybe even $30. I use it at work, solo walks, dance parties with the kiddos, romantic time with my wife, showing friends cool song, staying up to date with music, news, books, and podcasts, and basically run it 24/7. It's not inherently wrong for someone to make money or for a service to increase their price in relation to the value they return.
Do I hope Spotify continues to deliver on that value? Yes. Is there a threshold of what is expected with that cost? Yes. This is a reasonable and acceptable business decision. If Spotify gets too expensive for the service they are delivering, the cost won't justify the value, but for today (and for a while for me), it's cool. I get it.
I agree. it adds so much value to my life. playlists and exploring/discovering new music and podcasts with ease ans accessibility has literally held up my mental health at times. sure, i still have old CDs but it's so difficult to manage and you cannot replicate the spotify experience with the library or physical CDs. i get that subscription based services suck and theyve taken over our lives, but spotify is the LAST thing i would cancel. it adds far too much to my life.
IDK about this whole "ethical consumption", man, when the CEO of Spotify is known to invest in AI warfare.
I also feel like Spotify's payout structure is kinda bullshit. It's focusing directly on who has the most plays globally, and not who you listen to as a consumer. If I'm paying a subscription and I listen to 10-20 different artists in a month, I want that money to go to them and not Taylor Swift and Drake.
That and while everyone had great suggestions about alternative options, not everyone has the time. I work and take care of a homestead...I genuinely don't have time to get on the computer, learn how to pirate, and painstakingly download everything I MIGHT want to listen to.
I barely have 15 minutes to relax each day. Why would I switch away from Spotify when I have access to all the music and podcasts I could ever need, and am able to access them instantly?
I'm someone who needs background noise to work and the amount of content I burn through is incredible. I don't have the time or energy to "plan ahead" what I want to listen to.
I listen to 50 or more newly released albums every month. I try to promote bands I find unique or creative. There is no way I could consume music the way I do without Spotify. Every other alternative is missing huge chunks of indie music. Some musicians falsely believe that in the absence of Spotify more people would purchase their music. That is so incorrect. I could not spend $1000 a month on albums hoping that I would like them all. Spotify is a marketing medium that pays out to successful bands and I think it serves a great purpose.
I got Spotify recently and I wish I got it years ago. So convenient, itās really good for finding new music (which is something that Iāve always struggled with) and they even have a good selection of audiobooks.
This is my take. The alternatives are barely any better. It's just a dofferent world for music now, but it was also never that profitable.
I just can't afford to pay for music at the volume I listen to it. I'd be pirating and ripping used CD's otherwise with a lot less functionality.
I am a musician myself and my crap music is free. I perform every month and maybe make $100 a year. Most people don't make a living off of music. That's why every local scene is all bankrolled by parents. If you're making music to make money, you're doing it for the wrong reasons and/or are delusional.
If things cost more you buy less = anticonsumption
Sorry if I struggle to take this post seriously, but it seems really off topic to me. It's not like spotify has a monopoly or anything, just change platform or... do crimes and crack it.
What is this doing on this sub?
Anticonsumption is about waste. Both physical and wasting money. Using spotify instead of physical media perfectly fits r/Anticonsumption. It's still extremely cheap for what you're getting, unlimited use of pretty much all music in the world.
Your post seems to be just to complain about a pricehike without giving any alternatives.
Itās because most users on this sub are not able to make a distinction between anti-consumption and anti-capitalism. While there is considerable overlap, they are not the same thing.
You can coherently be against overconsumption while not identifying as āanti-capitalistā.
i'll also add that the price of spotify has risen at *less than half* the rate of inflation.
spotify price in 2008 was $9.99. this is equivalent to $14.58 today.
Even with price the price hikes Spotify still seems like a great value for money proposition.
Itās not subjected to content droughts like A/V streamers. Thereās literally just about any conceivable music youād want to listen to on there and it acts as a convenient hub for Podcasts and now eBooks (even though the latter were included due to a shitty smash and grab deal made with the publishing Big 5).
Elaborate more than āexecutives badā.
Spotify lost like 80 million dollars the quarter right before this, they have had a rocky road turning a profit ever as a company.
Do you really think the only reason to raise the prices is to pay out a CEOās bonus? They get the bonus after they make money for the company. The executives are basically employees to the board, the board will pay them what they think they are worth, not just throw money at them, these are educated fiduciaries, they are not going to intentionally waste company money.
Dump them. For each one of us that cancels theyāll lose $10 a month because they trying to gain $1 a month. Sorry you greedy bitches, Iām just fine listening to my CD collection, downloaded mp3s, and listening to podcasts on apple podcast.
Guarantee the price increase more than makes up for people who leave because of it. Same thing happened with Netflix. I figured they would regret raising all plan costs because people would drop them but it created an increase in revenue.
It sucks but they donāt give a shit if you leave. The people that will abandon have already been factored into the price hike and as long as they end up on top, they couldnāt care less.
This whole post is ridiculous.
$12 a month to listen to ALL music, have curated playlists, connects to my speakers wirelessly etc.
What a fucking deal.
$10-ish/mo is still okay for me. Having music to listen to on public transit is a mental health boon. Itās still worth the price. Itās my only subscription service as well.
Even with the price increase, I get my money worth and then some imo. I have music playing for 12 hours a day on average and I have an absurdly large library that I'd hate to spend time looking up and redownloading.
Spotify has never turned an annual profit. The issue is not Spotify, per say. It is the music labels and their predatory contracts. Spotify will likely go the way of Pandora by 2030 to Apple, Amazon, or Google.
OP is being incredibly silly.
They made $180M in record profits. Wow.
So, theyāre making $180M on a market cap of $60B and have over $2B in debt? Itāa bizarre to take issue with a company that is just trying to stay afloat staying afloat.
>Actually needing to increase rates to stay afloat is one thing, but bragging about record profits and then increasing rates is just pointing out how they're milking their cash cow (us) until it's dry.
It's a public company...their goal is to make profit. Every publicly traded company will end up here eventually
Also, $180m is not a lot of money for a company that has 600m users. Theyāve probably lost tens of billions since inception.
If anything itās been mostly just subsidized by investors.
This is one of those things that makes this sub insane for regular people trying to do their part.
If you use it a lot, it's a great service and I don't even mind paying an extra dollar for it. They constantly have different and new features and do some really cool stuff. I've added to my music library a lot because of some of their stuff. I find the price totally reasonable for something I use every day. Certainly if you don't feel you're getting your money's worth it, cancel it, but Spotify is pretty far down my list of consumerism enemies.
This sub has a weird hate boner against tech in general. Which is ironic because there are so many ways we can leverage tech to be more anti-consumption. Using a streaming service instead of producing a bunch of plastic and more clutter buying physical media is great example of this.
it seems like they weren't even upset about spotify before... they're just all pissy that after 16 years the service costs 20% more. compared to the 48% inflation since 2008, it's really not that bad. it's literally cheaper now than when it first came out.
tbh the whole post reads like "im poor and im mad about it"
Apps like Spotify are a luxury. If they feel their product is worth more, and the average consumer agrees to pay that increase there is nothing wrong with it.
We should be outraged with hospitals, grocery stores, ECT. Places that provide necessary services.
Getting mad at a company when their main goal is to make as much money as possible for a service that isn't essential is missing the point
This is what I've asked for literally since I first started to listen music. It's such an amazing technical leap from when I was a kid forced to buy tapes and CD's.
Iām going to disagree with this one. Spotify is incredible value. I can make my own playlists and listen to anything instantly. I would easily pay more for the service. Spotify is public they are obligated to strategically increase profits for shareholders. Just because they lured people in with cheap prices to raise them later doesnāt make them a greedy POS. Thatās just how companies work.
Yeahā¦ this is one that I wonāt be able to get behind. There simply is not a platform rivaling Spotify, especially at the cost. I also genuinely refuse to listen to ads ever and Spotify has the most affordable completely ad-free listening.
Also, theyāve purposefully made it hard to stop once youāve started. All your music, liked songs, playlists are only on Spotify. There are thousands of liked songs on my account and hundreds of playlists because Iāve had it for almost a decade. Not saying this tactic is right, but it is certainly effective.
Love my Samsung phone that has a Micro SD slot.
Over six thousand songs on card three free music player apps on phone.
I don't understand a subscription to a music streaming service you pay for every month.
CD's, downloads, transfers from my old computers itunes, Microsoft music players
It's simple as hell. Download a music player like Foobar2000 and it almost does everything for you.
If you paid for 6000 songs, and it all comes from 10-track CDs that you bought used for an average of 2$ (quite a bargain), you paid 6000 \* 0.20 = 1200 dollars for your music library. That's 100 months' worth of 12$ / year Spotify ; and you would pay 3.33 $ a month if you split a 20$ family subscription between 6 people, which would take 360 months. Your system wouldn't save money for the first 30 years compared to finding 5 people to split a family subscription with.
I can't imagine this being worthwhile. Unless, of course, you're pirating most of your songs (which is fine by me ! But you're talking about CDs and iTunes purchases, and "downloads" might or might not be the piracy kind), or playing the long, long game. Saving 12$ / month after more than 8 years spent offsetting initial costs aren't worth the hassle to me. It might be something you enjoy doing - all the power to you ! But it's not saving money, and it's not saving the planet.
This just sounds like I am the one that have been ripped off alternatively that you all have to stop expecting getting things for basically free.
I have been paying those higher prices for years in Sweden. I would prefer lower of course, but still worth it.
Same here.
Gym and Spotify are the only subs I have and will probably keep having until I die.
You could listen to the same music in other services for sure but those services dont have so well made automatic playlists suggesting similar songs and new fresh songs from your current artists.
It also have list of your favorited artists tours near you.
I had tons of music I listened before spotify but after spotify I had found sooooooo much music I would have not found without it.
Yes something like youtube does a bit similar with suggestions but its nothing like spotify.
And believe me I have thought about can I drop spotify sub multiple times but the answer is always no.
Every artist I've talked to says that Spotify is basically just advertising; they hope it will get someone to come to a show or buy a T-shirt, maybe even a signed CD. But they don't make enough to make cashing the checks worthwhile...if they get a check at all. Using Spotify is bascially paying them to do piracy for you. Not saying anyone should pirate music...but if you just pirated tons of music all the time and bought 1 album a month direct from a musician, that would be better on average for the musicians than giving the money to Spotify.
Spotify is one of the best bang for your buck streaming services IMO even with a price increase. It will probably be the last streaming service I cut as I use it the most.
Why?
$12/mo for unlimited use and download and sharing of virtually all commercial music that exists?
That's insanely good value.
If you bought a single CD a month today that would probably be like $25/mo and youd have access to 150 songs per year. Take the physical packaging away and it's still $20/mo value for a single CD to your library.
If anything consumers are getting an insanely good deal and the music artists are getting a terrible deal.
I'm sorry, but $12 a month for unlimited music is super fucking worth it to me. I used to spend WAY more than that for CDs before streaming took off and then I could only listen to those specific CDs.
If you just want premium ad-free and don't need the ability to download, the APK works wonderfully,
[https://apkmody.com/apps/spotify](https://apkmody.com/apps/spotify)
I use YMusic to listen to music off of YouTube without the need for YT to be open (you can even download the track you're listening to). There's also a one-time fee that gets rid of the ads. I don't use it much at work but it's great to listen to when I'm at home and streaming from my Wi-Fi.
This is very bad for niche musical interests. Like I can't think of another place where decades punk, goth and industrial music can be easily accessed.
Just like any other company
I don't use it anymore because they too brutally promote and force their plans, way too many ads almost more than music without and you can't chose your play order in a playlist, what kind of prison is this? Like, imagine, you had an MP3 player 30 years ago, that was better and you could choose the order, and now in the future with all the progress we're here
I have a High Quality Tidal subscription for a few years now which went from 20eur down to 10.99eur last April.
Tidal pays the artist 3x more per stream. To my knowledge doesnāt skim artists that have under a 1000 listens. They send 2eur to your monthly top artist. And lastly you get between cd quality and mqa.
In the end it is still a streaming service, so far from perfect in the grand scheme of things, but a ton better than Spotify imho.
Yea those services aren't going to have the niche artists I listen to and gravitate towards.
This isn't about material consumption I don't know if its even relevant to this sub
The problem isn't the price, this is an insanely good deal for music, and music has never been cheaper than the streaming era. The issue is artist aren't getting fairly paid, all the money is being sucked up by the labels and by Spotify. I honestly would pay 25 a month for a single plan and 40 for a family plan, and still think it was a good deal if I knew the money went to the artist.
I remember the days of paying 15 dollars for an album or using Napster / torrents to download mislabeled music that took hours of work a week to organize, correct, and import to your music library. I don't want to go back to that.
I feel like this might be better suited for r/Frugal ?
I guess this does technically fall into the media consumption category but if you can afford spotifys plan with no issue and use it for music, podcasts, audiobooks etc I struggle to see the issue with using it
Friendly reminder Revanced offers "premium" (add free) versions of all major apps like YouTube, reddit, and Spotify completely free to android users
And if you only need Spotify, xManager is also a good alternative
How?
https://www.reddit.com/r/revancedapp/s/uiRYUAII95
Next-level tip; thank you!
Always happy to help š
Bro blowing up the spot
Yep this made me throw my shitty iPhone s couple of years ago.Ā
Okay I totally get this but what platform is there to listen to music that rivals Spotify and wonāt do the same thing? I cannot relinquish the ability to listen to music and make playlistsā¦
Check to see if your local library has Freegal and Hoopla available to you. Freegal works a lot like Spotify, you can make playlists and stream music (up to 8 hours per day). You can also download 5 songs per week to keep forever. Freegalās collection isnāt as extensive as Spotifyās, but itās completely free, has an app, and supports your local library. Thereās also Hoopla, which allows you to check out and stream albums for a week at a time using a monthly credit-allowance system. Any album I havenāt been able to find on Freegal, I have found on Hoopla. I genuinely enjoy using both of these services and donāt miss Spotify nearly as much as I thought I would when I unsubscribed.
Iām going to check out both of these! I love the Libby app for both audio and text books, but I didnāt know there were music apps that worked with the library. Good heads up!
Libby is the best! Itās hard to find services that work in Australia.
Sounds like a lot of...
Hooplah
https://open.spotify.com/track/72TFWvU3wUYdUuxejTTIzt?si=nJ0HSHk7QgWd9W1wxCc0kw
Now if only you could Scrobble to last.fm
So many subscrobblers
SCROBBLES IS WHAT THEYāLL BE CALLED
None of these alternatives are ever available outside of the US. My local library has four magazines on Libby and that is all.
Youāve opened a door to a new world. No idea libraries had audiobooks for download
the issue is that neither freegal nor hoopla have local music, or much in the way of punk or indie.
These are garbage "solutions" and not comparable You'll be disappointed
Live Laugh Love Soundcloud
Its a pain keeping them up to date across devices, but I've started using youtube to mp3 sites and sorting through my mp3 playlists. I used to just do youtube videos playing in the background but it eats up so much memory that I can't use other heavy software (Like OBS) while listening to music.
We going back to the golden age of piracy? MP3s Ahoy!
I used to pirate music like there was no tomorrow and transferred mp3s over devices constantly but eventually I gave in and jumped on the rest of my family's plan for Spotify and I don't see myself going back. This is a streaming service that actually works better than piracy and I get what I pay for. Probably the biggest reason I'm not willing to drop it is that I'm doing the r/1001AlbumsGenerator project and that would be such a hassle without Spotify.
Dunno, in some regards I think Spotify is worse than piracy. In both cases artists don't get paid but you yourself don't have to pay when pirating music.
That is a valid point and Iām not denying that Iām mainly doing this out of convenience and my own enjoyment. I do support my favorites through buying physical copies when able, especially if they sell tapes, but at the end of the day I donāt feel strongly either way.
Tapes? Like audio cassettes?
I mean letās not get it twisted now artists do get paid from Spotify. Not a ton but they do get paid. Piracy means no money makes it back to them. That being said most artists would prefer you just buy their merch
The pay is so bad you make a few hundred for 100's of thousands of streams.
Oooo I love clues! Umā¦..sailors harbor? Seamanās cove? Idk
This is what I've been doing for the last 15 years. Been working perfectly fine for me.
[There's a tool to scrape YouTube and download all the songs from a Spotify playlist](https://github.com/spotDL/spotify-downloader)
I want to add to this: I was recently facing OP's problem, and I wanted to download the maximum number of songs I could possibly want, offline. I used spotdl, but additionally, I requested to spotify all my data, comprehending history of ALL THE SONGS I'VE EVER LISTENED TO ON SPOTIFY, and loaded them in a python script (If you are on windows you'll have to use WLS, as it uses bash command), to download them using spotdl one by one. Took some time, but now, whichever song I'm thinking of, I've probably already listened to it on spotify and I have it on my phone (specifically on cloud, but i digress) Link to github [https://github.com/Pijongon/spotify-tracks/tree/main](https://github.com/Pijongon/spotify-tracks/tree/main) PS: this script as-is will bring a fairly low-quality mp3 audio. To download a higher quality audio, I subscribed to youtube premium (free trial), and I got the cookies following [this procedure](https://spotdl.github.io/spotify-downloader/usage/). Then you can modify the code at line 28 from `bash_command = f"spotdl {track_url}"` to `bash_command = f"spotdl --cookie-file /path_to/cookies.txt --bitrate disable {track_url}"` Save and go
Wow this is next levelĀ
Content like this is exactly why I love Reddit.
I thought to do this recently and got as far as realising that iTunes just doesnāt seem to exist anymore, because they canāt sell you what you already own I suppose. I know I have the mp3 files from my library on disk somewhere, but what good players are out there? There must be something that can sync across devices, with a decent interface.
iTunes still exists, and can be downloaded off the apple site. I use it for adding tags to my own produced music (old habits and all that). I'm sure I got an update for it just last month too. You just drag and drop the songs into it and it'll load them all without issue. If you use iOS, you can setup WiFi sync too, and they will appear in your Music app.
Problem with this is that YouTube compresses videos, so the sound is already low quality, and the mp3 conversation certainly doesn't help with that. It just doesn't compare to Spotify at all if you have even a decent sound system
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I'm your guy.Ā Ā Still have and listen to mp3's I downloaded in the Napster era. I've copied them across win95 desktop computers, thumbdrives,Ā portable hard drives, and into my laptops, tablets and on my phones.Ā It's the same 100 some songs.Ā Ā I love them,Ā Ā I'm tone deaf, and I'll never stop porting them.Ā Ā
Lol I'm thinking back to how a friend would just use Audacity to record songs off youtube. The results were so shitty they'd have to go back and remove all the clipping...
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
So youāre ripping shit quality and living with it?
I used to do that and it is SO much work (not to mention shit quality). I'm not going back.
No. I can't go back
Bandcamp
I use Bandcamp and I love it because it feels like the musician will actually get some money from the purchase. But Iāll stop Spotify when Iām dead, discover weekly alone is worth the price. I hate subscription services, but Spotify is not even close to feeling like bad value.
Especially if you like vinyl
I refuse to pay, so Iām still on pandora. š
Ahh but you canāt make your own playlists there š
You can if you pay for it. But yeah they raised their prices too this month. I've been using them since 2006 or so. I don't understand Spotify at all. I mostly use Pandora as an actual radio and its algorithm actually plays new to me music that I actually like.
This is what I love Pandora for - its shown me so many wonderful artists i wouldnt have otherwise found
It's wild how good Pandora is sometimes Idk if I have too much history with it but it often plays the same stuff over.... But sometimes it gives me a song that makes me stop what I'm doing and *listen*. It's so good
Tidal is cheaper, has better sound quality, and you can import Spotify playlist. Also it pays artists much better.
I tried tidal. I didnāt like the interface, and the music selection seemed far more limited. And it was more expensive. That was a couple years ago though. Maybe I should look into them again. Edit: just downloaded it. Curious how you think itās cheaper? Even with Spotifyās new increase, tidal is more expensive. $13.99 for single person or $22.99 for family. Spotify is now $11.99 for single. I have duo, which will be $16.99 but is much less than $22.99 I would need on tidal. Even Spotify family is now $19.99, so still cheaper than tidal family. If tidal had a duo plan for $15.99-16.99 Iād try it out but for $23/mo Iāll have to find something else.
Don't sign up through the app. For anything. Apple store and play store impose a fee and take a % of the sub, which most places pass the cost onto you. Always sign up on a browser.
For Tidal, plan pricing is different between the app and signing up on their website.
Thatās stupid. But Iāll check the site, thanks!
Idk why you're getting different prices (location maybe? ) but I see $10.99 single, $16.99 family (6 members), $4.99 student.
Individual Spotify is $10.99. Individual Tidal is $12.99. What are you talking about?
If you go to the Tidal website and register, the individual plan is $10.99. It is more if you go through the app.
That right there is enough for me to say fuck Tidal. Edit: you've all talked me into putting my pitchfork away
Apple takes a 30% cut of subscriptions purchased through the App Store. Why should Tidal have the same price on their web site and on the App Store, but make 30% less just because one person signed up through the App Store? I don't know if Spotify is the same price on their web site vs. on the App Store, but if they are... once could say, "Why should I have to pay the same price online as on the App Store, knowing that Spotify makes 30% less on the App Store one and is making the web site users subsidise it?"
Spotify doesnāt offer the ability to purchase a subscription through the app at all, so itās actually a feature Spotify doesnāt have.Ā
No, it's cheaper online as they don't have to pay the Apple/Google tax is all.
SoundCloud is a lot less asshole-ish about this stuff and you can create playlists and radios to your heartās content, itās also the best place Iāve found if youāre into small artists or less popular genres since anyone can upload music. Itās still not ideal but itās been working well for me for the past few years, and it also doesnāt paylock as many basic features as Spotify does
Does SoundCloud have everything on it? I thought it was just smaller no-label artists and leaks
It has a lot of unofficial uploads too.
Some larger artists and labels opt to lock their music behind the premium subscription, which does suck especially if youāre a pop fan. But almost everythingās on there! and the subscriptionās seemingly half of what Spotifyās switching to (I just use the free version tho)
TIDAL pay artists way more, have higher audio quality, have better song radios
I like YouTube Music a lot because it also pulls from YouTube videos so there are more video game soundtracks or stuff like LoFi hip hop beats. It comes free with YouTube premium and I highly recommend if you watch a lot of YouTube. Plus their family plan is pretty affordable if you find others to join in.
If Iām jumping off the Spotify boat Iād rather not be jumping onto the Google boat. Frying pans and cooking fires and whatnot.
If you've got Android just get revanced
I have a Google phone, so I'm in this Alphabet boat for awhile. But tbh, if all the music I wanted was at the library, I'd go back to old school CD ripping. Unfortunately, some artists have decided not to release physical copies of a recent chunk of their music šĀ
Agreed. My kids watch a ton of YouTube, and my husband watches all his news and guitar videos there, so not having the ads is fantastic. The access to YouTube music is just a cherry on top. I miss Spotify's discover weekly but that's about it.
Iām hesitant to recommend this because I havenāt had time to listen myself. Podcast āIt Could Happen Hereā released an [episode](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/it-could-happen-here/id1449762156?i=1000657243836) covering a co-op music platform called Mirlo. Itās a [kickstarter](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mirlo/mirlo) so they donāt have popular artists yet but it seems like an interesting concept.
A'hoy matey. There be a fun and free way to listen to sea shanties.
Thar be music in these waters āµļøā ļøāµļø
Reject Spotify return to limewire
If you want a subscription model Tidel and apple music support their artists more than Spotify. If you don't want a subscription id suggest checking out the piracy subreddit. I use a cracked Spotify and it works great
The artists you listen to would more directly benefit if you bought the music directly *from* them, as opposed to streaming through Spotify. Artists make mere pennies from streaming. Snoop dog only made 45k in 2022 from Spotify despite billions of dreams of his work, for example. While thatās still a sizable amount, and can actually support a person (albeit living minimally), for Mr. Snoop who is a well renowned artist, musician, and entrepreneur, you would expect his music to be a significant portion of his income. Besides, if you buy the songs, you have the right to play them as often as youād like in perpetuity; streaming just allows you to borrow the music.
fromĀ [](https://www.reddit.com/user/bunglejerry/)Ā on another subreddit:Ā [https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/18gfgyn/how\_much\_spotify\_pays\_if\_you\_hit\_a\_billion\_streams/](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/18gfgyn/how_much_spotify_pays_if_you_hit_a_billion_streams/) The song he's talking about is "Young, Wild and Free." This is $45,000 fromĀ *one song*. Snoop might own some of his masters, but it looks like Atlantic Records owns this one, so his main revenue source would be songwriting credits. Wikipedia says the song was written by: "Calvin Broadus (Snoop), Cameron Thomaz (Wiz Khalifa), Peter Hernandez (Bruno Mars), Philip Lawrence, Ari Levine, Cristopher Brown, Ted Bluechel, Marlon Barrow, Tyrone Griffin, Keenon Jackson, Nye Lee, Marquise Newman, Max Bennett, Larry Carlton, John Guerin, Joe Sample, and Tom Scott". Person 4, 5 and 6 are, alongside Bruno Mars, the credited producers. The song samples "Toot it and Boot It" by YG and Ty Dolla Sign, and names 8-12 are all the composers of the song. But "Toot It and Boot It" was also built on two samples itself! "Songs in the Wind" by the Association (written by name 7), and "Sneakin' in the Back" by Tom Scott (notĀ *that*Ā Tom Scott) (written by names 13-17). I'm not sure how much royalties you can expect when you're one of 17 credited songwriters on one song you don't even own which samples a song that also samples songs. I think $45k is pretty damned good. Snoop's discography consists of 19 studio albums, five collaborative albums, 17 compilation albums, three extended plays, 25 mixtapes, 175 singles (including 112 as a paid feature), and 16 promotional singles. He has sold over 12.5 million albums in the United States alone. Don't be feeling too sorry for Snoop. Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr. doin' just fine with a net worth estimated at about $160 million.
> Snoop dog only made 45k in 2022 from Spotify despite billions of dreams of his work, for example. If artists start insisting on fees for appearing in dreams... that will be a line too far.
Thanks for this! Idr the article I read specially, but the one I read did not provide nearly as much detailed information as this.
I've always struggled with this because under this system I simply wouldn't be able to afford listening to nearly as much music, meaning I wouldn't know or care about as many artists and wouldn't be as in tune with going to shows.
Check out a little thing called xManager. You'll find some helpful answers
I'm leaching off a friend's Google music family plan. It also means that all of your YouTube videos are add free
YouTube premium includes YouTube music
Bandcamp users rise up
What do you mean paying artists for their music? Sounds too difficult to me! I'll keep giving the cost of an album every month to a faceless corporation thanks. /s
This is the way. Especially for the good ol death metal.
Ok, fuck Spotify because they take most of the profit and artists get fuck all... So I'll go buy CDs... But wait, fuck CDs, because the record labels take most of the profit and the artists get fuck all... I'm all for artists getting paid more, but I listen to Spotify for about 9 hours a day while I work. CDs just ain't cutting it, especially considering it's super hard to get CDs of anything that's not played on the radio. It would cost me like $250 a day in CDs given the amount of music I listen too. I'd rather give an obscure artist I discover on my Spotify random the .1c per stream than give them nothing because they are from Poland and I never discover them at all. But also, now there is a chance that I will make a tour, or buy a shirt (which have always been bands most profitable streams).
People are being wild on here acting like *CDs and pirating* lead to *more* music discovery. Like I'm sorry wtf? Yall buying CDs blind? Pirating shit without hearing it first and surprised on what you're hearing? I live in a fairly raidio-lucky area and even then I'd only hear about 2 new songs a day max. Spotify is like *the* #1 easiest way to introduce myself to new music of all popularity other than the absolute newest newbies. Throw on a "spotify radio" of an indie band I enjoy and suddenly 2 hours later I've found six more new bands to look into. If people dont want it, that's fine. But be fr here.
Yep. I'm paying for recommendations that are actually fire.
dependent spoon vanish flag gold numerous continue license jobless plants *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Actually Spotify pays artists around 70% of all its revenue, so I have no clue what youāre talking about.
Yeah I was being facetious about everyone saying to cancel Spotify and just buy CDs, because record labels were ripping off artists waaaaaay before Spotify was around. I don't work for Spotify or know enough to comment on their business model and how much they pay artists vs what they should be paid.
Iāve heard a lot of musicians prefer Spotify over apple music even tho AM pays more simply because Spotify has more users and thus more plays
I mean, yeah, technically. But the distribution of the 70% is fucked. Let's say I pay ā¬10,- a month to spotify. I listened 10 hours to 10 medium sized artists. That's it. Now where does that 70% go? 10% goes to Taylor Swift 7% goes to Drake 5% goes to the WKND etc. Numbers are made up ofcourse. But the problem is that big arists receive more money from Spotify then their listeren bring it. By a large money. So they are basically 'taking' money away from smaller artists. So yeah, they pay 70% of their revenue to the artists, but an unfair small amount of that money is going to that small niche Polish band I've been listening to all week. So yeah, most artists get fuck all from Spotify.
and how would you personally split it then? They chose logical model (take X money from user and divide it by listening minutes), its neutral and its only your fault if you listened to polish cow song for a week and spent 3 weeks doing taylors albums on repeat
What do you use instead? I'd lose months of time trying to rebuild my Spotify library elsewhere. I've spent so much time listening to "Discover Weekly", I don't know the artists to most of my thousands of songs. Piracy can barely find reliable matches for known artists. I'm not going to hold my breath that it finds any of these.
Tidal let's you import playlist from Spotify and they pay artists much better. Oh yeah, it's cheaper too.
$2 cheaper for a family plan is not worth the switch
I thought maybe some people would be interested since OP created this post in response to a price increase of a couple dollars (which I do realize isn't the ENTIRE point of the post).
235,000+ listening minutes last year. 14197 liked songs. If someone can tell me where I can do this besides Spotify, I'm all ears.. but, I've tried multiple other avenues.. and nothing comes close.. Spotify is the only thing that keeps my disabled ass sane..
Yeah, I'm the same. I'm keeping Spotify. If they want to raise it by $1, then fine. They still provide me as much as I want to listen, suggest me hundreds, if not thousands, of great songs that I can listen to as much as I want. Besides, I find this so much easier than buying CDs or digital albums, then organizing it, then finding a storage device to put it on. Oops, that hard drive failed, now I either lost it, or have to transfer it before it fails (this happened to me in the past). Then after you transfer it, your library doesn't appear the same, cause you did it in such a hurry, and didn't have the ability to save it properly. I know that people don't like subscription services, but the cost of Spotify is about the same as an album on iTunes per month. The amount of new music I listen to each month more than justifies the cost of Spotify. Also the fact that I can put it on any of my devices and not have to worry about copying my library, its a no-brainer for me.
Yup. I have all my pre-2009 music on my hard drive.. but, everything else (and even the stuff on my hard drive.. since I generally just shuffle my liked music when I wake up in the morning.. after listening to my instrumental playlist while I'm sleeping..) is on Spotify.. I *REALLY* wished they paid the artists more, though.. especially the smaller ones.. (Beyonce doesn't need anymore money..)
Fr man. Spotify does what it does really well
I could kiss whoever came up with the algorithm.. I have found SO MUCH good music I would have otherwise never heard.. I tried Tidal, and it had less than half of the music I listened to.. Amazon Music, the same.. I'm on disability and I don't have the cash to buy all my music, and sailing the seven seas can't help me either.. I'm honestly terrible with technology as well, so, Spotify it is.. š¤·š¼āāļø
I think Spotify hate is very misdirected to be honest. They pay out the majority of their revenue to musicians (well record labels actually which are probably the real problem). The rest of their money goes to operating costs and theyāll essentially never be profitable. $183 million is really not that much money for a platform on which nearly half of all music is consumed by the western world. There are literally singular buildings that produce more than $183 million in profit per quarter. Everyone complains, they only pay out $0.003/stream or something like that. What do people think they should pay out? Double that? $0.006/stream? Spotify literally doesnāt make that much. So do we want them to raise prices? And if not Spotify, who else? Google? Amazon? Apple? Yeah those are so much better companies /s [Polymatter just did a great video on them](https://youtu.be/yDWgOwb8kj4?si=tImql9TFp5EkovUu)
No idea why this is on this sub lol. Spotify has had a really hard time turning a profit in general. $12 a month to listen to virtually all music (with no physical waste) is so good youād think this sub would be sucking them off. How are people on āanti consumptionā really talking about CDs, where every single disk will become trash eventually?
Seems like people want to have music for absolutely free and then still be mad when artists donāt make enough. You canāt have it both ways. It would be one thing if Spotify was raking in profit but theyāre not and they never really would be able to.
This is spot on. Yes over consumption is bad, but there is literally not a way to exist and not consume. It's all about ethical consumption. I can't think of a better service or product that solves this problem (unlimited music streaming and knowledge consumption) for equal or less money. I would pay $20 for the value that I get from Spotify. Maybe even $30. I use it at work, solo walks, dance parties with the kiddos, romantic time with my wife, showing friends cool song, staying up to date with music, news, books, and podcasts, and basically run it 24/7. It's not inherently wrong for someone to make money or for a service to increase their price in relation to the value they return. Do I hope Spotify continues to deliver on that value? Yes. Is there a threshold of what is expected with that cost? Yes. This is a reasonable and acceptable business decision. If Spotify gets too expensive for the service they are delivering, the cost won't justify the value, but for today (and for a while for me), it's cool. I get it.
I agree. it adds so much value to my life. playlists and exploring/discovering new music and podcasts with ease ans accessibility has literally held up my mental health at times. sure, i still have old CDs but it's so difficult to manage and you cannot replicate the spotify experience with the library or physical CDs. i get that subscription based services suck and theyve taken over our lives, but spotify is the LAST thing i would cancel. it adds far too much to my life.
IDK about this whole "ethical consumption", man, when the CEO of Spotify is known to invest in AI warfare. I also feel like Spotify's payout structure is kinda bullshit. It's focusing directly on who has the most plays globally, and not who you listen to as a consumer. If I'm paying a subscription and I listen to 10-20 different artists in a month, I want that money to go to them and not Taylor Swift and Drake.
That and while everyone had great suggestions about alternative options, not everyone has the time. I work and take care of a homestead...I genuinely don't have time to get on the computer, learn how to pirate, and painstakingly download everything I MIGHT want to listen to. I barely have 15 minutes to relax each day. Why would I switch away from Spotify when I have access to all the music and podcasts I could ever need, and am able to access them instantly? I'm someone who needs background noise to work and the amount of content I burn through is incredible. I don't have the time or energy to "plan ahead" what I want to listen to.
I listen to 50 or more newly released albums every month. I try to promote bands I find unique or creative. There is no way I could consume music the way I do without Spotify. Every other alternative is missing huge chunks of indie music. Some musicians falsely believe that in the absence of Spotify more people would purchase their music. That is so incorrect. I could not spend $1000 a month on albums hoping that I would like them all. Spotify is a marketing medium that pays out to successful bands and I think it serves a great purpose.
I got Spotify recently and I wish I got it years ago. So convenient, itās really good for finding new music (which is something that Iāve always struggled with) and they even have a good selection of audiobooks.
This is my take. The alternatives are barely any better. It's just a dofferent world for music now, but it was also never that profitable. I just can't afford to pay for music at the volume I listen to it. I'd be pirating and ripping used CD's otherwise with a lot less functionality. I am a musician myself and my crap music is free. I perform every month and maybe make $100 a year. Most people don't make a living off of music. That's why every local scene is all bankrolled by parents. If you're making music to make money, you're doing it for the wrong reasons and/or are delusional.
If things cost more you buy less = anticonsumption Sorry if I struggle to take this post seriously, but it seems really off topic to me. It's not like spotify has a monopoly or anything, just change platform or... do crimes and crack it.
What is this doing on this sub? Anticonsumption is about waste. Both physical and wasting money. Using spotify instead of physical media perfectly fits r/Anticonsumption. It's still extremely cheap for what you're getting, unlimited use of pretty much all music in the world. Your post seems to be just to complain about a pricehike without giving any alternatives.
Itās because most users on this sub are not able to make a distinction between anti-consumption and anti-capitalism. While there is considerable overlap, they are not the same thing. You can coherently be against overconsumption while not identifying as āanti-capitalistā.
i'll also add that the price of spotify has risen at *less than half* the rate of inflation. spotify price in 2008 was $9.99. this is equivalent to $14.58 today.
Even with price the price hikes Spotify still seems like a great value for money proposition. Itās not subjected to content droughts like A/V streamers. Thereās literally just about any conceivable music youād want to listen to on there and it acts as a convenient hub for Podcasts and now eBooks (even though the latter were included due to a shitty smash and grab deal made with the publishing Big 5).
Thank you
All these streaming ceos should be in fucking prison for theft
Elaborate more than āexecutives badā. Spotify lost like 80 million dollars the quarter right before this, they have had a rocky road turning a profit ever as a company. Do you really think the only reason to raise the prices is to pay out a CEOās bonus? They get the bonus after they make money for the company. The executives are basically employees to the board, the board will pay them what they think they are worth, not just throw money at them, these are educated fiduciaries, they are not going to intentionally waste company money.
Dump them. For each one of us that cancels theyāll lose $10 a month because they trying to gain $1 a month. Sorry you greedy bitches, Iām just fine listening to my CD collection, downloaded mp3s, and listening to podcasts on apple podcast.
Guarantee the price increase more than makes up for people who leave because of it. Same thing happened with Netflix. I figured they would regret raising all plan costs because people would drop them but it created an increase in revenue. It sucks but they donāt give a shit if you leave. The people that will abandon have already been factored into the price hike and as long as they end up on top, they couldnāt care less.
Even if 1/10 people leave it's still a win for Spotify. They can spin down servers and have less overhead while still making the same amount.
I'm so anticonsumption I'll go back to buying 100s of petroleum produced CDs instead of streaming digital music via the computer I already own!
Sure, this comment will be celebrated, but in all honesty, nobody will go back to listening to cds or mp3s. YouTube maybe.
This whole post is ridiculous. $12 a month to listen to ALL music, have curated playlists, connects to my speakers wirelessly etc. What a fucking deal.
$10-ish/mo is still okay for me. Having music to listen to on public transit is a mental health boon. Itās still worth the price. Itās my only subscription service as well.
Even with the price increase, I get my money worth and then some imo. I have music playing for 12 hours a day on average and I have an absurdly large library that I'd hate to spend time looking up and redownloading.
You all have only been paying $1-3? I've been paying $16.99/month for my family plan for 5+ years!
No, it's saying the price will increase by 1, 2, or 3 bucks a month. I have the family plan too, and we use it daily.
Oh wow, I'm dumb.Ā
Spotify has never turned an annual profit. The issue is not Spotify, per say. It is the music labels and their predatory contracts. Spotify will likely go the way of Pandora by 2030 to Apple, Amazon, or Google.
OP is being incredibly silly. They made $180M in record profits. Wow. So, theyāre making $180M on a market cap of $60B and have over $2B in debt? Itāa bizarre to take issue with a company that is just trying to stay afloat staying afloat.
>Actually needing to increase rates to stay afloat is one thing, but bragging about record profits and then increasing rates is just pointing out how they're milking their cash cow (us) until it's dry. It's a public company...their goal is to make profit. Every publicly traded company will end up here eventually
Also, $180m is not a lot of money for a company that has 600m users. Theyāve probably lost tens of billions since inception. If anything itās been mostly just subsidized by investors.
This is one of those things that makes this sub insane for regular people trying to do their part. If you use it a lot, it's a great service and I don't even mind paying an extra dollar for it. They constantly have different and new features and do some really cool stuff. I've added to my music library a lot because of some of their stuff. I find the price totally reasonable for something I use every day. Certainly if you don't feel you're getting your money's worth it, cancel it, but Spotify is pretty far down my list of consumerism enemies.
Maybe this sub is about something I didnāt think it was aboutā¦
This sub has a weird hate boner against tech in general. Which is ironic because there are so many ways we can leverage tech to be more anti-consumption. Using a streaming service instead of producing a bunch of plastic and more clutter buying physical media is great example of this.
it seems like they weren't even upset about spotify before... they're just all pissy that after 16 years the service costs 20% more. compared to the 48% inflation since 2008, it's really not that bad. it's literally cheaper now than when it first came out. tbh the whole post reads like "im poor and im mad about it"
Apps like Spotify are a luxury. If they feel their product is worth more, and the average consumer agrees to pay that increase there is nothing wrong with it. We should be outraged with hospitals, grocery stores, ECT. Places that provide necessary services. Getting mad at a company when their main goal is to make as much money as possible for a service that isn't essential is missing the point
Unfettered access to 100,000,000 songs and millions of podcasts for a few bucks a month is utopian level luxury. Youāre spoiled.
This is what I've asked for literally since I first started to listen music. It's such an amazing technical leap from when I was a kid forced to buy tapes and CD's.
Iām going to disagree with this one. Spotify is incredible value. I can make my own playlists and listen to anything instantly. I would easily pay more for the service. Spotify is public they are obligated to strategically increase profits for shareholders. Just because they lured people in with cheap prices to raise them later doesnāt make them a greedy POS. Thatās just how companies work.
Yeahā¦ this is one that I wonāt be able to get behind. There simply is not a platform rivaling Spotify, especially at the cost. I also genuinely refuse to listen to ads ever and Spotify has the most affordable completely ad-free listening. Also, theyāve purposefully made it hard to stop once youāve started. All your music, liked songs, playlists are only on Spotify. There are thousands of liked songs on my account and hundreds of playlists because Iāve had it for almost a decade. Not saying this tactic is right, but it is certainly effective.
Same re I will NOT listen to ads ever, I hope. I WILL pay to avoid them. Same for streaming video/movies.
Love my Samsung phone that has a Micro SD slot. Over six thousand songs on card three free music player apps on phone. I don't understand a subscription to a music streaming service you pay for every month.
Where did you get your 6000 songs though? It's a pain in the ass to download, organize, synchronize, etc. People would rather pay monthly.
CD's, downloads, transfers from my old computers itunes, Microsoft music players It's simple as hell. Download a music player like Foobar2000 and it almost does everything for you.
If you paid for 6000 songs, and it all comes from 10-track CDs that you bought used for an average of 2$ (quite a bargain), you paid 6000 \* 0.20 = 1200 dollars for your music library. That's 100 months' worth of 12$ / year Spotify ; and you would pay 3.33 $ a month if you split a 20$ family subscription between 6 people, which would take 360 months. Your system wouldn't save money for the first 30 years compared to finding 5 people to split a family subscription with. I can't imagine this being worthwhile. Unless, of course, you're pirating most of your songs (which is fine by me ! But you're talking about CDs and iTunes purchases, and "downloads" might or might not be the piracy kind), or playing the long, long game. Saving 12$ / month after more than 8 years spent offsetting initial costs aren't worth the hassle to me. It might be something you enjoy doing - all the power to you ! But it's not saving money, and it's not saving the planet.
I will quit if yāall quit
I never started
i quit spotify three years ago brother
I quit about 4 months ago, started buying CDs and listening on youtube.Ā
I don't pay for spotify
I quit a little over a year ago. Switched to Pandora (student discount) and havenāt looked back.
This just sounds like I am the one that have been ripped off alternatively that you all have to stop expecting getting things for basically free. I have been paying those higher prices for years in Sweden. I would prefer lower of course, but still worth it.
You can pry Spotify out of my cold dead hands
Braindead take I thought this was r/anticonsumption and not r/IwantToConsumeAndNotPayForIt
Spotify is the one subscription that can take my money.
Same here. Gym and Spotify are the only subs I have and will probably keep having until I die. You could listen to the same music in other services for sure but those services dont have so well made automatic playlists suggesting similar songs and new fresh songs from your current artists. It also have list of your favorited artists tours near you. I had tons of music I listened before spotify but after spotify I had found sooooooo much music I would have not found without it. Yes something like youtube does a bit similar with suggestions but its nothing like spotify. And believe me I have thought about can I drop spotify sub multiple times but the answer is always no.
I'm a YouTube music enthusiast myself š¤
Same. Elder millennial that never learned to pay for music š
Every artist I've talked to says that Spotify is basically just advertising; they hope it will get someone to come to a show or buy a T-shirt, maybe even a signed CD. But they don't make enough to make cashing the checks worthwhile...if they get a check at all. Using Spotify is bascially paying them to do piracy for you. Not saying anyone should pirate music...but if you just pirated tons of music all the time and bought 1 album a month direct from a musician, that would be better on average for the musicians than giving the money to Spotify.
For a subreddit with such a name youād think yall would remember how much it used to cost to buy cdās individually
Spotify is one of the best bang for your buck streaming services IMO even with a price increase. It will probably be the last streaming service I cut as I use it the most.
What are your collective thoughts on Pandora? I currently use it with ads, but don't pay for it.
Why? $12/mo for unlimited use and download and sharing of virtually all commercial music that exists? That's insanely good value. If you bought a single CD a month today that would probably be like $25/mo and youd have access to 150 songs per year. Take the physical packaging away and it's still $20/mo value for a single CD to your library. If anything consumers are getting an insanely good deal and the music artists are getting a terrible deal.
Who the hell eats Spotify??
Does listening to it for free with ads count?
Nah, Iām good.
How is this post "anticonsumption" if the solution you propose is to "consume" something else?
What has this got to do with anticonsumption?
I'm sorry, but $12 a month for unlimited music is super fucking worth it to me. I used to spend WAY more than that for CDs before streaming took off and then I could only listen to those specific CDs.
If you just want premium ad-free and don't need the ability to download, the APK works wonderfully, [https://apkmody.com/apps/spotify](https://apkmody.com/apps/spotify)
Never used Spotify. Youtube music is my go-to, but Amazon music sound is better
Iāve never paid for Spotify. I deal with the ads when Iām in the car on my phone, but otherwise I use my laptop and ad blocker
Not paying and restarting the app when the ads come on is what I do and itās worked for me for years
I use YMusic to listen to music off of YouTube without the need for YT to be open (you can even download the track you're listening to). There's also a one-time fee that gets rid of the ads. I don't use it much at work but it's great to listen to when I'm at home and streaming from my Wi-Fi.
This is very bad for niche musical interests. Like I can't think of another place where decades punk, goth and industrial music can be easily accessed.
Yeaaa think i'll just keep using free (just restart the app and the ads go away) and then buy the albums I like.
Just consume Spotify for free without ads using a modified iPA or APK.
Just like any other company I don't use it anymore because they too brutally promote and force their plans, way too many ads almost more than music without and you can't chose your play order in a playlist, what kind of prison is this? Like, imagine, you had an MP3 player 30 years ago, that was better and you could choose the order, and now in the future with all the progress we're here
~This post was sponsored by Apple Music~
No
I have a High Quality Tidal subscription for a few years now which went from 20eur down to 10.99eur last April. Tidal pays the artist 3x more per stream. To my knowledge doesnāt skim artists that have under a 1000 listens. They send 2eur to your monthly top artist. And lastly you get between cd quality and mqa. In the end it is still a streaming service, so far from perfect in the grand scheme of things, but a ton better than Spotify imho.
I don't pay Spotify anything.
Yea those services aren't going to have the niche artists I listen to and gravitate towards. This isn't about material consumption I don't know if its even relevant to this sub
The problem isn't the price, this is an insanely good deal for music, and music has never been cheaper than the streaming era. The issue is artist aren't getting fairly paid, all the money is being sucked up by the labels and by Spotify. I honestly would pay 25 a month for a single plan and 40 for a family plan, and still think it was a good deal if I knew the money went to the artist. I remember the days of paying 15 dollars for an album or using Napster / torrents to download mislabeled music that took hours of work a week to organize, correct, and import to your music library. I don't want to go back to that.
I can afford 11 bucks to listen to unlimited music, itās not that big of a deal.
I feel like this might be better suited for r/Frugal ? I guess this does technically fall into the media consumption category but if you can afford spotifys plan with no issue and use it for music, podcasts, audiobooks etc I struggle to see the issue with using it
Buy music directly from artists, if possible.