Enshittification
Deezer (paid for flac - lossless files) + Deemix-gui + Jellyfin + Symfonium works quite well. Though you need to have a media server, so not exactly a drop-in replacement.
Alternatively, you could use Navidrome.
I use that because it’s natively available in Termux. Yes, Android terminal emulator. My music is on the SD card and I can share it to other devices using Navidrome on LAN. Since I also do this on school network, I put NGINX in front of it for HTTPS… and also because I don’t want to have each thing on separate ports.
I have also got Jellyfin to work once in proot-distro, but I couldn’t reproduce it the last time.
have you ever looked into roon + tidal + jellyfin? looking into media server stuff now and wonder how that would integrate with jellyfin, if it even can.
I’m not too familiar with roon. As for proper metadata, I’ve not had any problems with MusicBrainz’s metadata grabber. It’s a built-in plugin that comes with Jellyfin. Deemix uses your deezer account, which I believe requires the paid version if you want lossless flac files, and I have it configured to place the files in my Media share, which Jellyfin reads from. Symfonium is the android client I use that works with selfhosted media servers.
And enshittification continues…
How? This doesn’t affect the subscription nor the price.
Honestly, what does this change? For paid users nothing, and the free version was always unusable with you not being able to individually select songs.
Ensharttification?
Not compete shit but enough to warrant concern.
As a long time Pandora user… I never want to select individual songs. I want stations, vibes, playlists, etc.
Spotify has all that. Not “stations” so much.
Type in “sleep mood” and you get playlists with days worth of various calming music.
Workout? What kind do you want? Hard rock, deep bass rap, whatever.
Sounds like I’m cheerleading for Spotify but it really is pretty good these days.
Tons of podcasts, mood collections, etc. I haven’t looked up a song or artist they didn’t have.
I am a paid user.
(Their point was that Spotify’s free version is sufficient because they only want the things mentioned)
Piracy is coming back, and this time the tech has matured.
Laughs in Deezer
Deezer Free randomly became unavailable a few weeks ago in the Netherlands.
(Serious) question: How do you stand not being able to select individual tracks? I honestly would rather listen to my music in any of the free frontend apps rather than being limited to that extent…
Just listen to classical music. Problem solved.
Or techno.
My biggest problem is the censure. I’m in my car, “hey google play teenage dirt bag on spotify”. Sounds great until the “her boyfriends a dick he brings a [silence]. And he’d simply kick my ass…”
Or Jay-Z story of OJ : “rich jigga, poor jigga, house jigga, field jigga”
What? Seriously loses all context and meaning.
Spotify redefining the message of whatever was happening… Some cracker ass Swedish company censuiring the n-word when used by an artform that is legitimate and on purpose.
That’s why I collect vinyl. Can’t change that shit up on my listening it. It’s the way it is. If Jay Z wanted to use the N word then I want to hear it like it is. Not some bullshit “jigga” shit wtf is that? Isn’t it denying his message?
It’s because of this disgusting American cultural puritanism, I don’t know why but Americans especially the boomer cunts lose their shit at the first sight of a slur
Remember Carlin’s famous bit?
Bro, “Puritanism” is a religious movement of the 16-17th century. Maybe you mean purism?
Nonsense.
I had mine set up like that. But it’ll default to the clean version if you ask voice to play a song.
Wtf? Just could not believe, had to check it out for myself. What’s wrong with people.
Censure is me yelling at you for using the wrong word.
But Jay Z made that version too, knowing fully that the distributer can choose which pegi-level they want to use - rather than blocking the song altogether, or worse bleeping the bad language.
You can choose which pegi-level you use in the software, maybe your system is set up to defaults?
I think it’s weird to blame this on Spotify…
Granted I haven’t used Spotify for anything but an alarm clock ever since I canceled my premium a year ago, but what censorship are you talking about? 80% of my listening time before I quit was rap and I can assure you, there was a lot of bad language. Most albums and singles that have clean versions have a dirty version as well. Back in the day, clean and dirty were listed as separate albums, but they changed it so that it’s one listing and you have to somehow pick which version you want to look at/listen to/add to playlists. But maybe they changed that again I don’t know. I also vaguely remember there being a user setting for showing explicit content, but I’m not sure.
When you request a song through voice (like in your car), it’ll default to clean versions of songs. Even if your settings are allowing explicit lyrics.
I thought this meant on top of Premium and I was about to be pissed.
But honestly, Spotify is one of the only companies where I don’t feel like my experience has gotten noticeably worse over my time using it.
My experience got noticably worse that time they tried to make their UI look like tictok. I cancelled and deleted my account and have been on tidal ever since.
I switched from Spotify when they cut my family off of my plan because some of them don’t always live with me. I like Tidal a lot, but wish it was easier for me to share a song with friends who don’t use it. Ironically, I don’t think any family members but my dad actually use my Tidal plan, so basically I just switched out of spite.
My Spotify “family” is all over the place. They just all put in my address when they join and don’t have any problems. Just fyi for yourself or anyone else experiencing the same problem.
Always people that come along and say this.
To them I say: imagine if you had a calculator app that you only ever used for basic addition. Then the calculator app removed the subtraction, multiplication, and division functions. It may would not seem like a big deal to you, but that doesn’t mean the app hasn’t gotten less useful.
It’s true that they shouldn’t be baiting in with an unsustainable free version, but this is essentially paywalling the subtraction function, not removing it
In general, I feel like the music streaming market is in much better shape than TV streaming. Price increases have been modest, there’s no fighting for exclusive streaming rights (that I’m aware of). I pirate all of my movies and shows, but Spotify’s alright, for me it’s worth paying. And even if it turned to shit tomorrow, Tidal and Apple music are pretty good too.
And the enshittification of everything continues…
Really who cares? The free tier is shit and has always been shit. That’s the point of the free tier, to get you to pay.
Previously they didn’t even have a free tier, now they do and it’s free. Of course not every feature exists and especially not a feature like lyrics which isn’t essential and Spotify has to pay extra for.
The backlash is generally against all enshitification.
You get a useful free plan. Make it useless over time to convince people to pay for a plan. Make THAT plan useless over time to make people pay for the more expensive plan… repeat until capitalism ends.
That’s why people care. Eg: see all subscription services ever
It’s free 🤷
Also the free tier was worse when it launched. And the free tier has always been useless for me.
Yeha, but they can make their free tier as shitty as they want, it is their product…
If you don’t want to pay, just use one of the thousands tools to pirate music. If you don’t want to pay but still think you deserve a product with all the features you like, then you’re delusional.
Yeha, but they can make their free tier as shitty as they want
Who suggested they couldn’t? Having the right to do something doesn’t mean no one else can voice their displeasure.
If you don’t want to pay but still think you deserve a product with all the features you like, then you’re delusional.
It has nothing to do with “deserve”. Shitty businesses practices are worth calling out. Especially because this has nothing to do with supporting Spotify and everything to do with enriching stockholders. It’s a sign of desperation: they can’t make their product better to entice new customers, so they’re making their free product worse. It’s trashy and greedy.
But please, go on expending your energy defending a corporation from valid criticism.
I agree, but this isn’t one of those cases. Netflix, Disney, and Amazon adding ads to their paid products is worth calling out. Microsoft adding ads to their paid OS is worth calling out. Roku changing the rules and forcing people to agree to arbitration after purchase of a TV is worth calling out.
But Spotify putting lyrics behind their paid service isn’t like that at all. You can easily get lyrics with an Internet search, it’s a non-issue. Either pay or look it up yourself.
So I agree with the person you’re responding to, it’s not worthwhile criticism. I have no problem with corporations making money, I have a problem with corporations abusing their position to screw over customers, and Spotify has been remarkably well-behaved.
Right, I used their free tier for so long that I even started enjoying the lack of control I had. Like, music would just play for me. I bought the subscription because I really wanted to give them the money. I recall their ads even being only about Spotify premium, so I wouldn’t get random shit like YouTube ads.
they want, it is
Yes, but, like comma splices, we get to judge them.
LTT mentioned some time ago on the Wanshow about how gaking away is destroying more goodwill than adding new stuff only to the premium tier.
This is probably why most are so worked up about the issue.If you don’t want to pay, then don’t use it. Regardless of everything, music producers still need to live and pirating is a shit move to help them.
If I won’t pay, pirating isn’t going to take money away from them. Yeha, I know it is stealing, I won’t pretend it isn’t like many do, but hey, if they are giving me a shit service, they left me no choice.
I pay for most of what I consume but when I have no choice, I pirate. I do pay for Spotify premium, I don’t even mind the free tier, I just wanted to give them the money because their app is great.
Kudos for paying Spotify (as I do). I disagree on “if they give me shit service” part. If that happens, you have an option to either switch service or don’t use any of them. IMO pirating is not an option. Also when pirating though P2P, you also distribute the content.
The backlash is generally against all enshitification.
Or, as we call it, the principle of the thing.
If people are thinking “I don’t care, I got mine”, they need to learn why that elitism is wrong.
but it’s a free plan and if you can’t afford 5-15$/mo for unlimited music and can afford to spend time complaining about this then you have some much bigger problems in your life.
When did they not have a free tier? I remember the free version being around at least 10 years ago.
I do remember the free tier being introduced at some point. But it was a really long time ago. Probably 10+ years. I was still on XP back then.
I searched and I may have misremembered, the free version seems to have been around since the start except that the free version was initially invite and desktop only. Eventually everyone could use it but still only on desktop. The free version was even more limited back then it seems with a limit on how many hours you could listen to each month.
I could personally never use it. Because it was so incredibly limited. Not being allowed to skip tracks makes it unusable and I’m genuinely surprised anyone used it apart from trying the service.
I have a faint memory of it being announced that Spotify first got a free tier but I may be completely wrong, I was very young back then. I’m also from Sweden so we had Spotify very early compared to most countries and it got popular very quickly here.
Why are they even charging you for lyrics to begin with? It’s not like they write them. It costs nothing to give you that feature for free.
Kind of like the YouTube app requiring a subscription for background playing. It’s a basic function that does not cost them anything, yet they break it to sell it back to you.
Stripping extremely basic features away and locking them behind paywalls is shitty and should be called out as such, full stop.
Because they need to pay their supplier of synced (and non-synced) lyrics, Musixmatch.
It costs nothing
I highly doubt that. Lyrics are copyrighted like anything else, so record labels are going to charge for it.
like the YouTube app requiring a subscription for background playing
That’s an artificial limitation, as evidenced by NewPipe, Grayjay, and multiple others offering the same exact thing without a premium tier.
I don’t bother with streaming services anymore. I set up Navidrome on my home server for my music library and love it.
Also, I may be in the minority here, but I decided to start paying artists directly for their music. Whether it be buying a CD at a show or buying off of Bandcamp. I didn’t want most of my money going to Apple/Spotify, I want my favorite artists to at least get something for their hard work …
Yes, it’s more expensive if you expect to have the entire Spotify catalog at a moment’s notice, but I may be old fashioned in that I like listening to albums front to back, and tend to listen to a single album on loop for a long time. After I’ve worn out that album, then I’ll move onto another one. Buying about an album a month has worked out for me, which is about the cost of these subscription services (I know I’m definitely in the minority here in the way I listen to my library, but figured I’d share anyway).
Any other places you buy from? I essentially want a thing like lidarr that goes and finds everything in lossless format and presents me an option of buying it. Bandcamp is good but doesn’t have all the artists I’d like to buy from
What do you do with CDs? Genuinely curious about how they can be used in 2024 and surprised artists still have any printed.
You’d be surprised, quite a lot of artists still put out CDs! A lot of artists I like sell them when you go to their shows, it’s a great way for them to make money, along with selling other merch. I also really like collecting them. I also check out a lot of CDs from the library (more useful for older music, I listen to a lot of jazz and classical). I rip the CDs and throw them into my library, assuming there isn’t a digital version already available.
Then how do you learn about new music?
I thought about (and still want to) keep a self-hosted music library, but one of the things i look forward to is the New Music playlist that updates every Friday on YTM. I’ve found so many good songs and artists that way.
I scrobble my listens using Last.fm and ListenBrainz, which has given me some decent recommendations. It’s worked well enough for me. Maybe I’m “missing out” on more recommendations by not being on Spotify or other streaming service, but I still manage to find so much to listen to organically anyway. Also like @HouseOfJazz@lemmy.world, YouTube recommendations work too.
Just use YouTube for new music and try it out there. Then download what you really want.
Music scrobbling solves that issue for me. Navidrome integrates well with for example last.fm. Despite having my music listening history there one can find recommendations based on their music taste
Paying for premium gives a lot more money to artists. Most artists besides the mega stars really need it.
Paying for premium gives more money to artists.
That’s what Spotify claims. Do we have verifiable proof that actually happens?
You know what gives artists money? Buying their music instead of renting it through a middleman.
You make it sound as if artists could get compensated properly on Spotify if some more people paid for premium.
I think most people don’t realize how little money online ads make. Companies resort to it because people won’t pay for every little thing they use, but it’s not a lucrative endeavor. Reason why so many newspapers are shutting down and companies getting desperate after the VC money ran out.
Your username checks out because the difference is a fraction of a cent. What’s more important is who owns the songs made by those musicians, and in the vast majority of cases it’s not the musicians.
The record industry (including streaming) is not worth saving. It’s a parasite.
looks like shit
It didn’t originally have lyrics so free users are not really losing anything.
Originally Spotify started with no users. So they’re not really losing anything if people migrate to another service lmao
Sure but they’re not leaving… They have the largest user base by over 100M. Is that why u added the “lmao”? Sarcasm?
I left over the past year 🤷♂️ I imagine more and more will do so as the service continues to slide further to shit
What is shit about it though? Just pay for it. It’s worth it.
I’ve paid for Spotify for years and it is, without a doubt, getting shittier. They removed the integrated google maps car mode without a real replacement. They push podcasts, which most users do not care about, heavily now, despite having poor support for them UX-wise. They keep moving UI elements around without purpose. I’ve read they also have an exploitative revenue model for musicians on the service, but haven’t confirmed that bit myself.
never knew about the Google maps mode. works for me: https://support.spotify.com/us/article/google-maps/
Me too, and Lemmy inspired me to unsub! 😉
Apple has many more subscribers than in the USA, but I know Europe uses Spotify more. Being the biggest means they are more top heavy in the market.
But the funny thing is that even with a larger user base, Spotify has NEVER posted a profit (which gets significantly more negative each year). They also have been loosing a substantial percentage of their revenue per user each year as they further enshittify their platform.
They should be VERY concerned about losing users, and taking away features will end up doing just that.
So confused. A bunch of people using a platform for free criticizing them for never making a profit, then complaining when they try to make a profit by charging for a feature that doesn’t interfere with listening to music?
Do y’all feel the same way about YouTube?
Yes I feel the same way about YouTube, and I’m confident many others do as well.
You can pretend that users who trade their time listening to and viewing ads don’t deserve the to be upset with enshittification, but I wholeheartedly disagree. That line of thinking tracks very well with Musk’s approach to X, another service that was the “biggest” but not profitable. Look how they have done moving features behind paywalls and upending the expectations of their user base.
Okay, well YouTube isn’t going anywhere.
Twitter was hardly ever profitable. I understand what you’re saying, that they need to keep growing their free user base to become profitable with ads, but they can’t do it with ads alone and I’m sure they’re time crunched. I could see them selling to a larger corporation at some point you think you dislike Spotify now. Just wait.
Twitter was hardly profitable, but Spotify has never posted a profit. In fact, they are more negative in regard to profit every year. Twitter and Spotify are very similar in that their main success is volume, but not profitability.
I have no doubt Spotify could or would sell and get even worse. Just like Twitter.
People use it BECAUSE it was free and feature rich. When they start taking away the latter to bolster the former, you’ll see a migration to the next best free, feature rich service. I quit Spotify 4 months ago, and I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything.
Do you really believe this will make them more money?
not this alone, but as one person commented, the lyrics were a deciding factor of Spotify over YouTube Music. this among other features could draw more paid users. do other platforms offer lyrics that follow the music for free?
TikTok has a huge user base and they’re leaving.
Spotify has a huge user base but most people pay nothing. They’ll be leaving if they never learn how to leech more money from artists and listeners. Thus, these kind of desperate moves like hiding lyrics.
The TikTok thing is likely influenced by the possible ban in US.
As their users keep growing they can charge more in ads, but to your point, they will have to find a way to get more people to pay for the service. Maybe they need tiered pricing. One price for no ads and another price for additional features like lyrics.
Some features makes sense to be behind paywalls like the ai dj feature but basic features that was previously free is ridiculous
correct me if I’m wrong, but all other major streaming services have lyrics behind paywall (Apple, Amazon, Tidal). with Spotify having the largest user base, it makes sense to try to get some users to switch rather than keep a feature free that their competitors require subscription for.
I have an issue with free features becoming behind a paywall no matter which company do it. I have no issue with new pro features to be added
fair. in your opinion, it should have never been free to begin with.
When was “originally”? Lyric availability is the main reason I chose spotify over YouTube music. If it’s not included in the free plan then you can’t compare that and won’t pick spotify.
When you say choose you mean you use it for free or pay for it?
Pay for it after trying the free version. Both spotify and YouTube music are terrible on the free version.
People can try Spotify premium for 3 months free, but I understand what you’re saying. Some people won’t want to sign up for something that they have to remember to cancel, but if they’re truly in the market for a paid service it shouldn’t matter.
Google users didn’t originally have gmail, so if Google paywalls it nobody is losing anything?
Apples to oranges
That seems like egg plant to aubergine to me
If you search ‘xmanager github’ you will make a Spotify shareholder cry so please please don’t.
I’m not really getting what this does… Is it a patcher?
Yeah I’ve gotta say they have one awful website/github page. “Lets say nothing about what we do other than magically ad free music appears and hope people want to install this on their device!”
What do you want them to do, shout it from the rooftops so Spotify catches on? Some tools are better left quiet, so only people “in the know” use them.
Because Spotify is just going to magically not notice? I’m sure they’re already well aware.
probably because they don’t want to draw Spotify’s attention by loudly announcing “HEY GUYS WE GIVE YOU SPOTIFY PREMIUM FEATURES FOR FREE”.
Spotify modified to not have ads
Edit: but also it’s an improved app from spotify’s official app. It has amoled dark theme for example. I like it more
For iOS, there’s spotc++ but you’d need to know how to sideload
