• FireWire400
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    2 years ago

    Tidal increased their prices recently too, by the same amount. And for that I’m getting the high-quality audio Spotify keeps on promising for over a year TWO YEARS now.

    Don’t get me wrong, Tidal still has its own problems but I don’t get why people still choose to have Spotify over one of its competitors.

    • @DisconnectedChild@lemmy.world
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      52 years ago

      I actually hate Spotify as a company and find their app/service to be frustrating to use, thanks to them almost constantly dicking around with things.

      But… I still use them. Why? Because unfortunately with my needs and preferences, it’s the only music streaming app on Android that doesn’t have a completely shitty experience when either using it with AndroidAuto, or when casting music to my home stereo receiver. Their app offers the best experience and features against all the other apps I’ve tried (and I’ve tried them all).

      Tidal’s AndroidAuto experience is so minimal it’s not funny. No “like” button, no “add to library” button, no “dislike” button, so that killed them for me.

      Apple Music on Android is quite buggy when trying to cast to my home stereo. And their AndroidAuto experience is also buggy and lacking too many features I want.

      Deezer is pretty much the same as Apple Music from my experiences.

      Amazon Music is just “Bleh!” overall.

      Qobuz was really lacking in features I want the last time I tried it.

      YouTube Music drives me nuts with the way it integrates with regular YouTube.

      So I’m stuck with Spotify. And I don’t like it. But it’s the least problematic for me when compared to the alternatives.

      If I used an iPhone (but I prefer Android), I’d switch to Apple Music in a heartbeat because on iOS, Apple Music actually works quite well.

      My one hope, at the moment, is the forthcoming music streaming service from Tiktok. I have no idea how good/bad it will be, but I’m eager to try it when it hits the US, just because I’m praying it will finally enable me to kick Spotify to the curb.

      /rant

      • @toolverine@lemmy.world
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        22 years ago

        I used my YouTube username account for YouTube videos and my email account for YTM. It’s works perfectly.

        I know what you’re talking about, using a single account for both ruins the already bad preference tuning. You would think they would address this problem with a setting by now.

    • @messem10@lemmy.world
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      32 years ago

      320kbps is basically indistinguishable from lossless, even with insanely good headphones/amplifier/DAC/speakers.

      • @shalafi@lemmy.world
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        22 years ago

        LOL, audiophiles always want the best, far past the point of diminishing returns. Kinda like PC builders. (I’ve been guilty of the later.)

      • @vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de
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        12 years ago

        but mah 192KHz!!!

        Never mind that the first step in playing that stuff involves filtering all that extra shit out because a) I can’t hear it, and b) the speakers can’t reproduce it. All because I refuse to believe in the sampling theorem.

        /s

    • @Kuma@lemmy.world
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      62 years ago

      My guess is most are like me, I use Bluetooth headphones and are on the go if I listen to anything. So higher quality doesn’t really matter.

      • FireWire400
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        42 years ago

        I mean that largely depends on your headphones and whether or not they (and your playback device) support decent Bluetooth codecs

        • @Kuma@lemmy.world
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          22 years ago

          This is what I mean. This is why ppl would buy Spotify premium instead. Most do not hear a difference because of the devices they use. I am also pretty sure most do not hear much of a difference so that the price would justify it.

    • Action Bastard@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      As someone who tried to use Tidal for nearly a year because it paid better rates, it’s literally just 2 things: Artist Discovery and Algorithm Degradation towards a mass consumer mean.

      Spotify actually feeds me tons of great indie artists I’ve never heard before. Tidal was a constant struggle to purge mass produced giant record label pop from constantly infiltrating every single station and it almost never gave me some little artist who maybe has 5k listens total. I get those literally every single day from Spotify though.

      • @DulyNoted@lemmy.world
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        62 years ago

        Yeah, this has been my experience as well. Discovery on Spotify is really good. I’ll listen to something new and be like “how haven’t I heard of these guys!” And then I check their artist page and yeah it’s like a few thousand listens total.

    • @Supreme@reddthat.com
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      62 years ago

      Spotify and YouTube Music are the only streaming services I have found that make it easy to integrate songs that aren’t on streaming into your collection, and I don’t like YouTube Music so Spotify it is.

  • @Dankry@lemmy.world
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    512 years ago

    Spotify can go suck a lemon. I dumped them when they paid that right wing piece of crap Joe Rogan $200mil to continue to radicalize simpletons.

    • @SubPrimeBadger@lemmynsfw.com
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      72 years ago

      Did the exact same thing and switched to Apple Music. Unfortunately for some unknown reason, AM isn’t nearly as good in my experience. I have songs that were working and then come up as unavailable later. The recommendations are terrible like Apple is trying to push what they want me to hear not what I am interested in. Using it on multiple devices is painful as I sometimes try to play it on my win10 machine, my Mac, and my iPhone and it can’t figure out that while I am I lay playing it in one location at a time it thinks I am trying to play more than one simultaneously. Maybe I’ll try Amazon music next. I do wonder if Tidal is any good.

  • @soulifix@lemmy.world
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    162 years ago

    Everyone’s ‘okay’ with it until it’s $5 more. Then another $5. Then another $5.

    This is what’s happening with all of these streaming services. They’re all doing the gradual boiling water trick. They know if they turned the dial all the way to hot to make the water boiling, metaphorically speaking, that nobody in their right mind would want to jump in. But if they just turn the dial slowly, let the temperature build up by hiking these prices bit by bit, it wouldn’t cause that much of a stir and people will be complacent with it.

    • @Puzzle_Sluts_4Ever@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      This is literally a slippery slope fallacy.

      The reality is that this is a mix of these services having been vastly underpriced to build up a userbase. Now they need to at least MAYBE be profitable, if you squint hard enough. That, combined with inflation, means price increases.

      If spotify is worth it at whatever the new price is? Use it. If it is not? Consider an alternative. And if you can’t afford to have a dozen services? Down select.

      And when the price goes up again in a few years? Go through that thought process again.

      • @Colitas92@infosec.pub
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        2 years ago

        And when someone is short on money or just too tired of keeping track of which services having what media and switching chairs all the time ? remember there is always the way of Jack Sparrow, and go sailing to the 7 seas. ARRRGH!

        • @Puzzle_Sluts_4Ever@lemmy.world
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          02 years ago

          I mean, if you want an excuse to pirate, pirate. Nobody gives a shit, just don’t act like you are righteous for doing it.

          But, honestly? “Switching chairs” has increased how much I actually enjoy my media. I used to just always have a netflix because everyone did and a couple others. Now? The only persistent subscription I have is amazon prime because of all the other benefits and youtube premium because it is music+youtube. If there is something I want to watch on HBO? I get a month of HBO and then I watch Warrior Season 3 and a bunch of other shows. Whereas, back in the day, I would always say “Ugh, nothing is on” and spend way too much time carousel surfing.

          And if you can’t afford 15 bucks in a given month for entertainment? Odds are you also can’t afford the time it takes to consume said entertainment.

          • @ZodiacSF1969@lemmy.world
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            02 years ago

            I agree with you, but this site is full of people who hate the idea of companies having to make money and just steal shit all the time. It’s a lame attitude to have I think, they believe they are entitled to others work because they don’t like the distribution model.

          • @Colitas92@infosec.pub
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            2 years ago

            If i was in a righteous mood, i would say :

            1 - Paying for consuming media older than 30 years is a perversion of the intellectual property idea, of supporting artists for a short window of time by artificial restriction of the right to culture and knowledge, and then to release the works to the public domain for the enjoyment of society. That the capitalists extended said window to be the death of the autour + 70 years, and then invented the idea of owning the art-invention-etc made by worker-artists is the real robbery of the situation. The current phase of studios trying to leverage AI tools (and AI tools that are essentially industrial scale pirates AND plagiarists) to make even more exploitation of artists is not surprising to me.
            I forgot to add: the original north american idea was 14 years + 14 years, if the artist made a request for extension to get the 2nd period. Imagine if we had 14 years copyright now, everything made 14 years ago would be released and available to watch or even to make derivative works…

            2 - I am not north american, i am third worlder (Brazil). So, since i have the money and time to spend, i prefer to spend money on domestic artists and domestic works to benefit my nation, which is a lot poorer than western artists and populations, and with much less famous cultural works. Instead of giving (more) money to Disney, i can go on music shows or theater here, or sign up one of the local streamers, and pirate the foreigner’s content i want. Brazilian artists, that really need the money and attention, i try to pay whenever possible (if it is even available). For films made by disney (and equivalents) … they will make enough money from cinema release here and from their foreign rich country, no need to give then a monthly transfer on top. The book Open Veins of Latin America is something of a reference in this type of reasoning.

      • @Techmaster@lemmy.world
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        22 years ago

        It’s what the software industry calls dumping. Microsoft got in trouble for doing it with IE. They give something away for free or cheaper than the competition, basically subsidizing the cost with another lucrative division of the business. We make a bunch of money selling Windows, so we can afford to give away IE for free. And eventually we’ll put the competition out of business, then we can increase the price once we no longer have any competition.

  • @GnuLinuxDude@lemmy.ml
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    72 years ago

    To the people who are talking about Spotify not offering high quality, what’s wrong with Spotify Premium’s 256kbps AAC? That’s pretty dang high quality…

  • Dandroid
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    142 years ago

    What do they mean first? Family plans went up from $15 to $16 in May 2021.

  • @ZeroDrek@lemmy.world
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    132 years ago

    I was worried for a second until I read the article. $1 more/ is not a huge price increase and I’m ok with it considering they haven’t increased the price as long as I’ve been subscribed and I’ve been subscribed for at least a decade. Also, I use Spotify daily…for hours at a time.

    • @kostel_thecreed@lemmy.ca
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      22 years ago

      99% of the userbase doesn’t even know what Hi-Fi music is, so doubt adoption will be a thing. Look towards apple music, deezer, tidal, etc for hi-fi music.

      • @weeeeum@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        Honestly hifi isnt practically useful. It’s extremely difficult to tell the difference between flac and 320kps mp3 (very high quality setting in Spotify). Most people can’t tell the difference even with audio equipment costing a fortune.

        I used to be obsessed with getting the very best quality but frankly I gave up because there just is no discernable increase in fidelity (I use a dac+Sennheiser hd 600)

        *Hifi isn’t practically useful for most listening

  • gdbjr
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    182 years ago

    And yet they still don’t offer high quality audio.

    • dinckel
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      52 years ago

      Artists now get even less money, ironically. They’re strongly pushing towards this system where the algos will push your songs to users, resulting in some amount of more listens, except the downside is that you cut your own pay. If you’re signed on a label, you get even less than nothing now

  • @Apetitenevermind@lemmy.ca
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    52 years ago

    On this note how do I make a list of all of my music that I have liked to find on the high seas later? Ask for a friend.

    • irotsoma
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      32 years ago

      Spotify doesn’t allow access to the info for free because it makes it too easy to leave. None of the streaming services do. There are services with access to the info used for switching to other services that you can pay for.

      • @zzz@feddit.de
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        2 years ago

        Spotify doesn’t allow access to the info for free because it makes it too easy to leave. None of the streaming services do. There are services with access to the info used for switching to other services that you can pay for.

        Another EU win. I have literally never seen a paid service for that being advertised. All basic data export should be able to be done for free, and in an interchangeable format between the different services too!