I've done it. I've finally reached my "old man yells at cloud" moment. Why, why, WHY is Spotify adding features straight out of the social media playbook?

Anybody have recommendations for alternatives?

In my head there's:

~~YouTube music~~ (google, gross)

~~Apple music~~ (no way they're not on a similar trajectory)

~~Bandcamp~~ (limited, but at least bands see some money from it)

~~SoundCloud~~ (weird reputation, though haven't come back around to it in a good 10 years)

Tidal maybe? Would love to hear some recommendations.

Edit: I neglected to mention why I don't like the messaging feature. I've never used it, yet with a few of my friends there are already dozens of song exchanges in the thread. It's clear that spotify has been using user-specific links for a while now to track who sends what to who. That's a pretty clear anti-feature for me, and is enough to make me jump ship.

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[–] waddle_dee@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

So, I'm a bit of an enigma, so take my recommendation with a grain of salt. I use Tidal. It does the best, out of all my criteria.

1. Friendly privacy policy. It's very straight forward, and from what my lawyer friend said, it's pretty solid.
1. Hi def streaming. It's a must for me, as I have some nice cans and speakers I wanna listen through.
1. Payout to artists. Although they don't pay as much as Qobuz, they pay a substantial amount relatively, and the aforementioned points make up for the rest.
1. Ease of use. The app is really great and it's easy to use and I find that after curating my music for awhile, I get solid recommendations and the radio stations always hit well. Although, I do wish there was more variety in the stations. Sometimes, it plays the same tracks across stations.

All in all, I'm very happy with Tidal and I don't think I'm switching anytime soon.

[–] Eyekaytee@aussie.zone 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

spotify has hi def now

[–] waddle_dee@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yes, they do. However, they don't meet the criteria of my other three points.

[–] Eyekaytee@aussie.zone 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Payout to artists

They pay out more to artists than literally anyone else?

For another year, Spotify was the highest-paying retailer globally — paying the music industry over $10 billion in 2024. This brings total lifetime payouts to nearly $60 billion.

Ease of use

I don't find Spotify difficult to use at all

No idea about privacy policy

[–] waddle_dee@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Payout per stream is a more effective delineation than the total payout. I listen to some niche artists and if I'm streaming, I want to maximize their profit off my streaming.
Regarding ease of use, my issues with Spotify came in the form of all the AI slop they have pushed. They may have toned it down, but I won't subscribe out of principle.
They have not respected user privacy, therefore their policy is useless.

May I ask why me having a positive opinion of Spotify is important?

[–] Eyekaytee@aussie.zone 1 points 1 week ago (4 children)

They have not respected user privacy

What do you mean by this? How haven't they?

I listen to some niche artists and if I’m streaming, I want to maximize their profit off my streaming.

That's funny so do I, I listen to a lot of music and the majority are not popular, this helps increase the share of the pie so the artists I listen to get paid more

May I ask why me having a positive opinion of Spotify is important?

It's not

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[–] Eyekaytee@aussie.zone -4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

I'm so confused, if you don't want to use this feature, just don't use it?

Also for my money messaging has never been 'social media' otherwise we'd have to call MSN Messenger social media and that ain't right

[–] a4ng3l@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

That is a sound approach until they audiobook the shit out of it and suddenly there’s 90% of screen space showing it on the interface. So far it’s okay but there’s a growing trust issue between Spotify and myself as a user given their track record to make things shittier.

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