This is pretty amazing, I have been scrobblin’ for 23 years (pre-rename from audioscrobbler to last.fm), from Winamp and foobar2000 to iTunes to Spotify over the years - amazing to see them continue this service for the dedicated music lovers. One of the few services spanning decades of analytics - excited for the team!
Last.fm is now independent
181–190 of 232 posts
Re: Last.fm is now independent
#182Is anyone using last.fm in 2026? This made sense when people were playing MP3s in their Windows Media Player or Winamp, but as 99% of the people just stream music now, what is the purpose of this service? It has been maybe a decade since I met someone who actually uses the service.
I use it, set and forget for audioscrobbling since forever. And I still track gigs using it. Recommendations are still great.
Re: Last.fm is now independent
#183Glad they're not changing the API! I'm hopeful things will get better with them regaining their independence.
Shameless plug: We run https://songstitch.art/ for collage generation.
Re: Last.fm is now independent
#184Man i love last.fm even though it's been technically superseded (for most people) by Spotify's recommendation features. It just fit so well in the zeitgeist of 2000's indie scene, microblogs, early social media.
Spotify recommendations are biased because user incentive and theirs don't align. They pay different royalties to different artists, they optimize earnings. Also, they take money to promote music and shove it down your throat.
And, they're starting to push AI music into recommendations, as well. Their incentives are not aligned with users or artists. The major labels were previously pretty OK with the situation, as they had a negotiating advantage against indies and could get better deals for their catalog, but I guess they'll come to regret that deal with the devil.
Re: Last.fm is now independent
#185Is anyone using last.fm in 2026? This made sense when people were playing MP3s in their Windows Media Player or Winamp, but as 99% of the people just stream music now, what is the purpose of this service? It has been maybe a decade since I met someone who actually uses the service.
It's still pretty popular among younger listeners, even if the demographic doesn't overlap much with the techy people who used it in the 2000s.
Re: Last.fm is now independent
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think the recommendation engines behind Spotify, Youtube Music, etc compare to the recommendations I got from last.fm over the years. The algorithmic ones seem to have a bunch of issues that bug me as a long time music listener and someone with a large music library. - their memory is short as hell so you can listen to something for a while, stop and then it'll suggest it to you later as something to "discove…
One really annoying example of YTM's algorithm is it (or whoever works on it) doesn't understand that a genre can have diverse sounds and instruments, so it will recommend songs that all sound the same. Like if I start listening to house music, it will just recommend 100 songs that have organ 2 [0], even though house music is more diverse than that. Then it forces me to thumbs down the music, which also isn't what I…
> Then it forces me to thumbs down the music, which also isn't what I want to do, because I have no idea what effect it's having on my recommendations.
I feel this. Social media algorithms can be so complex and opaque now that I have to consciously consider what repercussions my interactions have. I have so little idea what interactions affect recommendations on e.g. Instagram that it almost feels random.
Re: Last.fm is now independent
#187TIL last.fm is still around!
Re: Last.fm is now independent
#188I hope this is a good change for last.fm! I love the service but it's been trickier to use since I switched from Spotify to Apple Music. Does anyone have a setup they're happy with for scrobbling from Apple Music across different types of devices?
NepTunes on macOS is nice - and it (optionally) adds the current track info to your menubar. I haven't found anything reliable for iOS, however.
Marvis Pro!
Re: Last.fm is now independent
#189i discovered so much music i love to this day thanks to their scrobbling or whatever discovery service was.
i’m talking like 2000s
Re: Last.fm is now independent
#190I love Last.fm, I've been scrobbling for over 20 years now. It's amazing to me that they have managed to stick around like they have. They're very much an "old internet" site, and I hope they can stick around for many many more years.
Yes. Audio Scrobbler was the thing.