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The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

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Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#21

Post by Tor3 »

I don't use Spotify anymore for random listening either. I use it only for very specific cases where I search for one particular song (and that's usually because I'm looking at a score at the moment and want to listen to it too, i.e. a very specific use case).

For everything else I only see a mess, basically what the author described. Bluntly speaking, it's become useless. Now I actually put on a CD at home when I want to listen to something.

However, I do listen to a particular podcast, on podcasters.spotify.com (10-minute Japanese listening practice), and at least there aren't any ads there.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#22

Post by neuronic »

throwaway220033 wrote: post #9
waihtis wrote: post #4

Spotify is one of the prime apps for "mass consumption", should be given the UI, UX and other aspects are geared towards your average nerf herders - not the tech savvy, independent-thinking-valuing crowd.

Nerf herders were totally fine with Winamp. I remember old people using Winamp back in the days.

My Spotify use is 99% mobile. Am I missing something or is the reappearing Winamp comparison simply misplaced?

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#23

Post by lawgimenez »

6581 wrote: post #10

> It keeps pushing playlists that feel generic, bland, more based on demographics than my years of consistent listening history. I don't really agree with this point. The personal playlists (both Discover Weekly and the Daily Mix ones) are very close to what I usually listen to and have made me discover dozens of artists I didn't know before. Maybe they work better for some than for others, but they don't feel like b…

I don’t agree with the author too. My Release Radar is totally on point with my type of genre, it has been this way. I’m curious if author has a generic taste in music?

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#24

Post by platelminto »

threeseed wrote: post #18
platelminto wrote: post #6

I'm also not a fan of the direction Spotify is going, but if I want to keep listening to music, I don't see a way around it - and I don't think other music services are materially different. I support the artists I care about most by going to their concerts and/or buying merch. I use services like last.fm for better discovery. Spotify doesn't have to be the only way you interact with music. The author doesn't say how…

> I don't think other music services are materially different They very much do if you care about audio quality. Spotify still doesn't support high-res audio e.g. CD quality and above.

For people that used to enjoy Spotify, such as myself & the author, this was never a main concern.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#25

Post by fabioborellini »

Spotify's suggestions are horribly bland and insultingly unoriginal compared to Apple's.

I keep getting Black Sabbath's Paranoid, the song, in various "deep cuts" and "new music" themed lists and suggestions. It's from 1969.

Apple's lists and suggestions may actually have new music.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#26

Post by code51 »

The crux of Spotify was the acquisition of Echo Nest back in 2014: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/mar/06/spotify-e...

I tend to think whatever good bits we see (Discovery being good) is sitting on the shoulders of that base work.

Yet, the product values of Spotify do not align with these people or musicians anymore.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#27

Post by madeofpalk »

6581 wrote: post #10

> It keeps pushing playlists that feel generic, bland, more based on demographics than my years of consistent listening history. I don't really agree with this point. The personal playlists (both Discover Weekly and the Daily Mix ones) are very close to what I usually listen to and have made me discover dozens of artists I didn't know before. Maybe they work better for some than for others, but they don't feel like b…

I feel like both of you are correct. It feels to me that Spotify's recommendations easily gets stuck in a 'local maxima' where it just keeps recommending the same music over again with little variation. I found much more variation from other music streaming services where the playlists are supposedly actually human curated. Music just ends up feeling a lot more bland with Spotify, in my experience.

I don't even know what the Discover Weekly playlist is supposed to be. It frequently puts in not-new songs from not-new artists Spotify know I've been listening to.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#28

Post by RedShift1 »

neuronic wrote: post #17

I dread the interface of Spotify. What do they employ massive numbers of UX people for? Nothing regarding Spotify's interface is any better than 2012. Cards, auto-play TikTok'ified video bullshit, weird navigation of menus and playlists, hidden core functionalities, lack of customization, funneling of user flows into garbage marketing content... It's like they are sitting in a lab and professionally try to find out h…

UX people just do what they think is right and follow trends. They don't do real research like how it was done in the 80's and 90's. And there's also dark patterns...

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#29

Post by nicce »

jamesear wrote: post #19

The post notes that Spotify pays $0.003-$0.005 per stream, and compares that to the average exec making $200k/year. If Spotify diverted all that exec money to artists, I wonder whether the $0.003-$0.005 figure would change, or if that would be too only amount to It might be fair to criticize Spotify's deal with rights holders of music, but the above line of critique doesn't hold so strong to me. As it happens, $200k/…

It depends what is defined as exec. If there are hundreds in the company, that could make a difference.

In 17% layoff, the numbers was around 1500 employees fired. It means there are around 7300 employees left. So that includes some execs.

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/04/tech/spotify-layoffs-thir...

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#30

Post by nusl »

threeseed wrote: post #18
platelminto wrote: post #6

I'm also not a fan of the direction Spotify is going, but if I want to keep listening to music, I don't see a way around it - and I don't think other music services are materially different. I support the artists I care about most by going to their concerts and/or buying merch. I use services like last.fm for better discovery. Spotify doesn't have to be the only way you interact with music. The author doesn't say how…

> I don't think other music services are materially different They very much do if you care about audio quality. Spotify still doesn't support high-res audio e.g. CD quality and above.

Which services would you recommend as alternatives for higher quality audio at similar price points?
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