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Amazon paid music subscription will soon include ads and lose downloads

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Re: Amazon paid music subscription will soon include ads and lose downloads

#11
post #5

That's the problem with subscription services. It's a coercive relationship where the terms are unilateral. As an alternative, I've been buying music from Bandcamp for quite some time now and have a huge library built in addition to the CDs I already owned and ripped to my NAS, which I can stream from anywhere thanks to Jellyfin. If I miss out on some stuff because it's not easily obtainable, whatever, at least my mu…

Cancelled my Spotify subscription as well, although on account of being served generated music several times in automatic playlists.

Actually owning music I listen to now feels great, but I missed the automatic recommendations. Setting up a plexamp server right now, but am looking into jellyfin. I love how it's OS and community supported. Does it have a recommendation system?

Re: Amazon paid music subscription will soon include ads and lose downloads

#12

Not to defend Amazon here, but I think this is talking about the already severely limited streaming benefit of Prime, not the dedicated Amazon Music paid subscription. The former is not really comparable to a actual paid music subscription service.

Yep, this is the same thing they did with the video streaming.

The video thing actually made me cancel prime. The shipping isn't a big deal anymore and I was able to justify the prime as a bonus to the streaming service.

Re: Amazon paid music subscription will soon include ads and lose downloads

#16

Not to defend Amazon here, but I think this is talking about the already severely limited streaming benefit of Prime, not the dedicated Amazon Music paid subscription. The former is not really comparable to a actual paid music subscription service.

Yep, this is the same thing they did with the video streaming. The video thing actually made me cancel prime. The shipping isn't a big deal anymore and I was able to justify the prime as a bonus to the streaming service.

I just want shipping-only again, like it originally was. I never wanted any of the extra slop on the side, and I lost the main benefit I needed of fast shipping.

Now even "prime" shipping is a weeks' promise out to deliver, but boy will they not stop slamming Prime Video and all this extra crap down my throat to try to make it sound like it's such a great value I didn't ask for. (Also: the nerve of the letters in the mail to remind me I haven't opened any of Prime Video?)

I've only placed ~2 orders in all of 2026 so far on Amazon because of the slow shipping garbage, and it took me forever to finally give in and buy it there because every time I sourced elsewhere (like eBay, for small goods like electronics adapters etc) I'd end up with an even slower Amazon dropship to my door.

Re: Amazon paid music subscription will soon include ads and lose downloads

#17
I'm expecting most everything to go this route eventually. Charging a subscription fee and having ads seems to be a money maker, so most services will get here eventually.

This is also one of the reasons I don't like the direction the video games market has gone. Most games (at least on PC) require Steam or EGS or similar service to access them. At some point, I'm expecting those to transition to a subscription model and/or become very heavy with ads, and then you'll need to deal with ads or subscription fees just to keep accessing stuff you already bought.

Re: Amazon paid music subscription will soon include ads and lose downloads

#18
post #11
post #5

That's the problem with subscription services. It's a coercive relationship where the terms are unilateral. As an alternative, I've been buying music from Bandcamp for quite some time now and have a huge library built in addition to the CDs I already owned and ripped to my NAS, which I can stream from anywhere thanks to Jellyfin. If I miss out on some stuff because it's not easily obtainable, whatever, at least my mu…

Cancelled my Spotify subscription as well, although on account of being served generated music several times in automatic playlists. Actually owning music I listen to now feels great, but I missed the automatic recommendations. Setting up a plexamp server right now, but am looking into jellyfin. I love how it's OS and community supported. Does it have a recommendation system?

Hmmm, that's a great question, I'm not actually sure! I don't _think_ Jellyfin has a music curation/recommendation system built-in. I did a quick search and https://github.com/LumePart/Explo came up as a possible self-hosted music recommendation service. ( found on https://github.com/awesome-jellyfin/awesome-jellyfin )

Re: Amazon paid music subscription will soon include ads and lose downloads

#19
post #6

This is the enshitification path, sooner or later these services have to turn to shit or charge a premium to be sustainable. Step 1 is to provide a good value, then lure in creators, then lock them in and profit.

This is Amazon Prime Music, an unasked for add-on to Amazon Prime to (in their minds) justify their raising the cost of Amazon Prime, so they managed to skip step 1. It was never a good value.

Re: Amazon paid music subscription will soon include ads and lose downloads

#20
post #5

That's the problem with subscription services. It's a coercive relationship where the terms are unilateral. As an alternative, I've been buying music from Bandcamp for quite some time now and have a huge library built in addition to the CDs I already owned and ripped to my NAS, which I can stream from anywhere thanks to Jellyfin. If I miss out on some stuff because it's not easily obtainable, whatever, at least my mu…

I canceled Spotify after they created an AI clone of King Gizzard. I couldnt think of anything lamer than to try an replace a band like that with an AI rip of their music. Never again.
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