Fuck Spotify. Even if you don't care about the ethics of Daniel Ek's investments, the platform itself is crap. One of the lowest paying to artists, not paying at all unless they hit a threshold, and the catalogue is filling up with AI slop, which they push on users via 'radio' and 'mix' playlists, so they can pay even less royalties. No, thanks.

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SuperMouse a day ago | parent | next [-]

I've tested Deezer for half a year. The software quality was horrible.

Had a lot of crashes, it often took many many seconds to change between the songs and often getting stuck, the buffering algorithm was nuts and eating a lot of bandwidth.

Everything on a standard Pixel. Full 5G coverage was available.

Alternatives?

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zcrar70 a day ago | parent | next [-]

Qobuz have the highest per stream payout rate for artists [0], and have the best audio quality of all streaming platforms (better even that Tidal imho). They have desktop, mobile and android auto (and presumably carplay) clients, and an equivalent to Spotify Connect whereby streaming can be switched to a different client.

Downsides are no native client (same webview approach as Spotify), not as strong recommendations (though slowly improving), good but slightly quirkier UI (also slowly improving). For me the trade offs are worthwhile.

[0] eg. https://resources.onestowatch.com/ethical-music-streaming-pl...

	▲	ronjakoi a day ago \| parent [-]
		I've been happy with Qobuz as well. I use the third party open source QBZ client on Linux desktop.

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cmehdy a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Tidal is the last streaming service I use, split between that and a jellyfin+arrs setup coupled with buying music from artists directly.

Fuck Spotify and their rotten leadership. Was amongst the early adopters (2009). I'm sure they won't care for the loss, and I won't miss th when they're gone.

	▲	jorisw a day ago \| parent [-]
		Seriously tried Tidal. Gave up on it because of the software quality.

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_kidlike a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Also, I know it's a bit niche, but Deezer does not have an equivalent of "Spotify Connect" protocol, which means that Network Integrated Amplifiers (like Onkyo A-50), CANNOT implement a player with good UX. Spotify is now king since they introduced lossless quality which is enabled by default in such amplifiers. The benefit is that there is no local streaming (e.g. Bluetooth) and no latency. The data come from Spotify directly to the amplifier and then your speakers.

So, Deezer that had a audiophile target audience, has effectively lost the game.

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LollipopYakuza 17 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Nitpicking but those devices do not "benefit lossless by default" after Spotify started offering it. I was very disapointed that my Yamaha network receiver didn't get an update to support lossless from Spotify Connect.

	▲	_kidlike 16 hours ago \| parent [-]
		:exploding-head:

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sznio a day ago | parent | prev [-]

>The benefit is that there is no local streaming (e.g. Bluetooth)

how is a lack of an offline, standard, widely supported option a benefit?

	▲	_kidlike 21 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I didn't say this is not supported. But it's not as good as streaming from Spotify directly to the amp, and the media decoding happens locally. Adding the Bluetooth layer adds more layers of encoding/decoding, and generally speaking it has narrower bandwidth.

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Walf a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Tried Tidal? The one gripe I have with it is no remote control, as in using phone to change what's currently playing on the device connected to my sound system, without it thinking I want to start playing on my phone.

Apple Music pays artists better, too.

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mcmcmc a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I left when they forced podcasts into my music app and never looked back

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tamimio a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The best is to host your own, navidrome is great and easy to set up. But if you really wanna hate on one, it’s Apple Music, believe it or not, they will actually delete ALL your playlists that you made over the years if you stop paying subscription for few weeks or sometime for days, why? Because Apple says fuck you, you are renting and you are not entitled for anything, which also explains why they are now trying to have hardware as a service with their new renting hardware program.. at least spotify doesn’t do that and keep your playlist to export later.

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ourcat a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Careful, you'll get downvoted by knee-jerk reactions from people who have absolutely no idea whatsoever about the harm Spotify causes to artists trying to survive in the music industry.

	▲	Walf 17 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I already did ;)

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veeti a day ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]