71–80 of 192 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Qobuz and 7digital both have extensive libraries of high quality music. Edit: and of course bandcamp exists but I wouldn't call their collection extensive.
Don't forget bandcamp.
It's worth the effort to host your own media. There are privacy benefits, you own the audio files (presumably) and are no longer hostage to a platform that cares little (if at all) about artists.
Of all the privacy concerns in my life these days, corporations knowing about my music taste is not cracking the top 1000. In fact Instagram ads have led me to discover some fantastic small artists, so I'll happily give that out to whoever cares. I'm sure it works fine if you've basically settled on what music you like and never listen to anything new, but if you do like to discover new music, self-hosting just isn't…
I tend to listen to albums in full, as the artist sequenced them. I get recommendations from friends and niche communities, then follow specific artists. When I start listening for the day I'll pick a known artist or set of albums, queue them up and go on with my day.
A couple of points missed for why Spotify is bad: - Paying musicians cheap wages to make boring music (ghost artists) for playlists they promote: https://harpers.org/archive/2025/01/the-ghosts-in-the-machin... - Not paying musicians anything at all if they don't have enough streams: https://www.engadget.com/spotify-confirms-it-wont-offer-payo... - Not preventing the deluge of AI-generated music flooding the platform:…
Spotify really wants to convert music into a commodity they can buy cheaply, own, and sell to an indifferent audience.
The author is angry that his Spotify subscription becomes slightly more expensive, now running at EUR 12 per month instead of 11. So his solution is to instead rent a EUR 6.50 per month Hetzner server plus a storage space that starts at EUR 3.20 per month (next bigger tier is 10.90). Which means he is now paying at least EUR 9.70 per month for infrastructure, and he has invested a whole bunch of time, and he doesn't even have any actual music, because that would cost extra.
Regardless of pricing you can't substitute one with the other... Spotify is a streaming service with a massive library. Self hosting means you must BYO media... and, news flash, populating a library with relevant content that rivals Spotify or would satisfy your average user will almost certainly require illegally acquiring said content.
You don't need to rival Spotify's library. How many songs on spotify do you have added to playlists? You just need to purchase those....
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- Commercial subscription services are getting worse
- Self hosted solutions are becoming better
Jellyfin is a really nice piece of software & Navidrome looks really cool as well! And in some (not all!) aspects the open source alternatives are even better than their subscription equivalents.
Spotify is the only streaming service I still pay for, and I will continue to pay for, because: 1. The catalog is comprehensive. I listen to far more music than I could afford to own. 2. There are no advertisements in the paid service. 3. Their music discovery algorithm is excellent. I also appreciate the yearly statistics, and how they continue to add value for me. Podcasts and eBooks being added to the platform was…
I do enjoy the Spotify Wrapped stuff, but after moving partially to selfhosting Navidrome for a growing collection of rips and DRM-free purchases, I've been scrobbling everything (including Spotify) to Last.fm, which has a similar end-of-year round-up. It's pretty good, got mine a couple of days ago.
I did the math once for my Spotify liked songs list [1] and it came to $52k for the last 15 years, or $288/month, if I were to self host, without piracy.
Spotify is the only streaming service I still pay for, and I will continue to pay for, because: 1. The catalog is comprehensive. I listen to far more music than I could afford to own. 2. There are no advertisements in the paid service. 3. Their music discovery algorithm is excellent. I also appreciate the yearly statistics, and how they continue to add value for me. Podcasts and eBooks being added to the platform was…
Tidal has smaller library but higher quality (assuming your speakers allow you to tell the difference).