I would like to see a HN inspired web site that lists all of the bands and musicians where we can click on a link and go directly to the band or musicians web site and buy or download the music directly from them.
No middle man earning a small fortune off the backs of those talented musicians.
Bandcamp is close to this. Unfortunately the website is kind of dated IMO and even core flows like exploring, buying and downloading music feel somewhat painful compared to rivals, and there’s no real recommendation system.
I would love to see a Bandcamp streaming service which fairly compensates artists and has a more discovery focussed UI, but they don’t seem that interested in evolving the product for whatever reason (they have had a fairly rough sounding series of acquisitions)
I know it's not what you're asking for but looking at who bought something I like, finding a few users with interesting looking collections and following them works quite well for recommendations for me. Sometimes I'll search for a specific DJ's user account to follow.
There's also the Discover tool at the bottom of their homepage which includes 'artist-recommended', a new and notable section, and they have regular blog posts for various genres.
Anecdotally, and without having read this, I unsubscribed and stopped using the app just last week. I think YouTube has better recommendations and selection.
Don't get me wrong, I've started moving away from Spotify, but not entirely for these reasons. Music to me is mostly one big playlist and a few smaller playlists from the same library of my music. And where my music doesn't get randomly yanked because the artist had a fit with Spotify or license issues came up
I never understood people's fetishization of albums and "enjoying" an album and all the music app interfaces created around that. I just want a cloud or self hosted version of winamp, where jumping to the next song or queueing it up from my playlist is a hotkey away rather than 12 clicks on a crowded interface.
Been moving to navidrome but i expect to eventually need some workarounds to get what i want.
Edit: also the poor implementation that is smart shuffle and shoving it down my throat
Depends in the genre and artists, some music fits into separate songs where albums are merely a collection, some is created for an album as the primary artform, with a narrative, themes (in a musical and literary sense) and story.
Think about it as an opera. Of course, Nessum Dorma sounds great by itself, but wouldn't it hit different if you hear it in the context of the whole story, with emotional buildup and everything?
> I never understood people's fetishization of albums and "enjoying" an album and all the music app interfaces created around that
There are concept/themed albums where the songs tell a story and you are supposed to listen them from start to finish.
Also several times an album is actually how the artists themselves wanted to release/listen/publish their songs (instead of individual tracks with no relation among them)
> I never understood people's fetishization of albums and "enjoying" an album and all the music app interfaces created around that.
Some albums are written to be enjoyed as a whole. A song might set up the next. Listening to an artist album by album gives you an idea of their progression. This might not be for everyone but surely isn't alien.
I think for me listening to a whole album comes from the fact that I’m a “legacy” music user. I used to listen to CDs and cassette tapes. So listening to five different artists meant either making a mix tape or changing CDs five times. So now I’m just used to listening to a whole album because sometimes that was all I had.
I'm going to get a lot of flak for this, but this is peak plebeian. I means to me you don't know how to appreciate music on a deep level, that you solely listen to "greatest hits" or genres/artists too base to be able to (or too commercial to even want to) create an album with an overarching aesthetic vision; not even talking about concept album, just having purpose in differences between tracks while still cultivating a similar sound and atmosphere.
I know, I know, this sounds way too pretentious and elitist...
As far as flak, I think your point about album appreciation could be interesting if presented in a more constructive way. The tone of your comment comes across as somewhat condescending, which can make it harder for others to engage with the idea.
Sadly, I don't really think the question at hand is complex enough to be more constructive than the single sentence I used. But let's try: could you reduce a movie like "Taxi Driver" to a single scene and keep all of its value? I categorically state "no", but you could probably with sitcoms-with-background-laugh-tracks ("probably", my experience with them isn't very extensive).
Basically, some music is made to be digested in small, radio/club-sized pieces and I argue that most of it does so not to fulfill an artistic vision. There are some exceptions, using this opportunity to maximize "streamlining" (I mean, I listen to some Eurobeat, so I fully understand that) and St Exupery's famous "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away", but that's definitely not the rule.
Also, people already drew pretty good comparisons to opera and other stuff that loses too much by being listened on a single track basis.
There's a lot of cases where I've been offered up an artist's "greatest hits" or "latest hit" through an algorithm, and it got me curious enough to dig and discover their albums, and listen to them the way they probably intended. I think your comment is a narrow way to look at algorithmic suggestions, and it comes off elitist.
I was talking about music listening, which is a very different act from music discovery, in my opinion.
Addendum: elitism may have a very double-plus-ungood connotation in the current year, but I've never heard a valid, factual argument against it; which is even funnier when you realize the kind of people conditioned to react this way to the word have a similar filter for "populism".
It's basically one of the modern "witches" arguments.
I don't think calling them a pleb is right, it's just that not everyone cares as much about music. I could probably come up with 5 different things I'm sure you don't think as deep about and call you a "plebeian". This is why you'll get the flak, not because you're presenting some novel idea. Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon is a well known album that you can't just listen to in parts.
The "pleb" part is specifically about consuming music like one does McDonald's. And the problem isn't eating McDonald's, it's eating only McDonald's.
I've always found strange that judging musical taste (or lack of it) is so controversial compared to other forms of art. If you say that people who only watch MCU movies or haven't read more than Harry Potter/Twilight are "plebeians" (or whatever less offensive word you want to use... philistine?), you'll get way less outrage than by stating something similar about music.
In the end, I think the disagreement may stem from two points: "plebeian" is automatically seen as an insult, not a possibly accurate (if condescending) descriptor and the usual extreme relativism that caring about music is should as universal as caring about tractors.
let me flip it on you, i have entire albums i like as individual songs. but i don't put the record on the start, turn off shuffle and pretend to be of higher intelligence because i 'appreciate' the work the artist put in to it.
For sure there are albums that are like that, i just don't tend to listen to music like that. I listen to a song, i think "oh, i want to listen to that next", queue it up and forget i wanted to listen to it until it comes up and i feel good about hearing that song i wanted.
And definitely far from the greatest hits only - that's a pretty stretchy conclusion.
edit: the problem i have at the end of the day, is forcing EVERYONE to organize their music and listening like that because the artist says "this is how you must listen to music". Sometimes i know the song i like and i just want to pick them out instead of browsing through another layer of albums that hide the list of songs by an artist.
As I expanded in another reply, what warrants a reaction like mine is listening to most or all of your music in this way.
I mean, I won't force people not to put ketchup in all their dishes, including when going to a 1-star Michelin restaurant, but if that's not the dictionary definition of "pleb", I don't know what is.
aye, and i'm not interested in having a chef prepare a tiny aubergine steak with a splash of tahini and charge me $500 for the honour of eating his choice of how to virtue signal to his chef friends.
I don't necessarily listen to ALL of it at once, I will mostly be queueing up what i want to listen to next constantly and skip through what i don't feel like listening to right now (if the platform allows it easily, which i'm struggling to find again). On another day in another mood, that same song i skipped previously might be just what i need.
Almost as if i can choose my meal and my dessert independently every day depending on what i feel like eating.
edit: and occasionally, it may be a $500 aubergine steak - when i want it to be.
Thing is that the musical equivalent of that dish is Schoenberg, "music that's clearly designed for album listening" is another beast and overlaps a lot with non-intellectual elitist stuff.
About meal and dessert, I've never experienced a strong and justified coupling between these; actually, I always rinse my mouth with water between dishes to fully embrace the taste divide.
I think, in the olden days you would be the guy who has a favorite radio station, tunes to it, and just let it run. That's what I do in the car anyway ;) Nothing's wrong about that. However, there is no need to denigrate other people's preferences with poor wording. You do you, they do they. There is no harm in the way anybody likes their music.
BTW, there is winamp-js, which is Winamp in your browser. I think the Winamp clone AIMP has a web-interface, but I could be wrong.
i like music from all over - i guess i agree the wording is a bit too on the nose - thinking if i edit and tone it down, but there's been a lot written after it already.
The issue is almost every good music application assumes an organization style by artist/album, which in the modern world, may not be how things still work. To me, albums are a suggestion/release unit.
They kept changing stuff, breaking my work flow, with every change it felt like there was more friction to listen to the music and podcasts I wanted, and less friction to listen to algorithmically selected slop I didn't want to listen to. Eventually I just said fuck it. I don't need this source of stress and frustration in my life. I've never looked back.
I'm on youtube music now. In many ways it's a worse product, but it at least stays the same and doesn't keep trying to make me change my listening behavior.
I suspect Spotify's problem is that they have (or had) too many developers, so you get this pressure to look busy "improving" the product, with endless lateral change as a result instead.
Yes, this is all over the place sadly. It’s so bad that I barely learn an interface since things are moving around constantly in all apps and websites, so I end up figuring things out every time I need them. I don’t even expect a workflow anymore. I just expect to search through shitty counterintuitive interfaces until I sometimes find what I’m looking for.
Sounds as much a problem of too many Product Managers all trying to make a mark so they can progress their career. Hence features keep getting added or re-designed.
When I left Spotify I remember it being difficult at first, I went around to various competitors who were all objectively worse. I've been using YT music for a few years now too and while it is not as good by a long shot, it's good enough and I feel more in control of my musical journey. You're right that they don't change much, it almost feels like a forgotten product, which probably doesn't bode well for its future with Google being Google.
If their problem was 'too many developers', I reckon they'd be building totally useless yet amazingly engineered SDKs and data/analytics tools or apps to improve the quality and satisfaction of your music consumption. Instead, they focus on all the things that just reek of an overabundance of marketers and Product People™.
It could be either, but yea, I have seen this mostly at companies with too many product owners and designers who are trying to build their portfolio, and they are enabled by too many developers who just say "yes" to everything they are asked to write.
But, the industry does also have a "Developers Gotta Develop" problem. The way I've seen it explained is: "Programmers are like beavers. Leave a beaver alone to decide what to do and they'll just keep building dams, regardless of the fact that their home is done." I don't know if that's really true about beavers, but it's true about software organizations. The whole software development team will just continue changing the software even long past the point where they're done.
I've been using Spotify for about 7 years. And honest question, what did they change so much that disrupts you from listening?
I swear I am not trying to be clever and throwing you a gotcha. I just never had any issues, and it may be down to how I use the service. Genuinely curious to how other people use it.
In my case, I only ever use Spotify on Android (or android auto if I am driving). I mostly listen to playlists I crafted myself. Sometimes I listen to one podcast or another when working out, but that's rare (I mostly listen to music).
What I am trying to say is that I barely interact with the UI at all - as it should be, I just want to listen to stuff. What is so bad about it?
Same. I especially disliked how they queued songs. They only allowed songs to be queued next, not at the tail of the list. Building an ad-hoc playlist was challenging.
I moved to Apple Music in 2018 and regret nothing.
unlike other platforms that are basically free throw ins by the mega corps. Spotify is its own thing and there is no money in music streaming. at least so far and its due to the monopolistic practices of music licensing.
spotify has to try and distinguish or expand as seen with the heavy podcast investments and they desperately need hit features if they want to compete with the companies and stay profitable. for reference i believe this year will be the first profitable one
I'm looking for a music app (streaming or otherwise) that supports what seems to me like a basic feature, but which seems to be unsupported in anything I've tried.
I want the ability to shuffle my library/play the latest releases/whatever while leaving albums intact.
I want to play the entirety of one album in order, then play another album in order, and so on.
Anyone know of an app that does this? I'll drop spotify today if some other streaming service can do this.
But now I imagine most people don't mind looking at the app every 30-90 minutes to choose a new album.
Also just looking at my saved albums in Spotify there's loads of crap in there just because I've downloaded it offline once in the past 10 odd years. A shuffle of these albums would suck.
So they'd probably have to fix the saving/favouring of albums before allowing shuffling of them.
Airsonic [1] and all the other Subsonic forks do this, either use the web interface or one of the many client apps. I use DSub [1] for this, it works as intended and does not try to get you to do anything you don't want.
The problem is that Spotify has to pay huge royalties to the studios instead of being able to make a large margin as other tech companies do. So they get squeezed from both ends, on one side the customer who doesn't want to pay more and on the other side the music industry.
Shouldn't scale compensate for that? Any business works in the margin between what suppliers and customers could allow them, record shops too. But traditional businesses couldn't hope to get a significant part of the planet to be their customers.
I quit them because they raised prices again. I find the app to be excellent, but paying $240/yr for music most of which I already have on CDs is idiotic.
We (as a family) moved from Spotify to Apple Music, but it was entirely down to cost. As our kids have grown and gained their own devices we've had to find apps/services that we can share with them. The most successful has been Apple One, having Arcade for them, TV and News for us, the storage, and extras like Fitness, it made sense to get Apple One. At that point we had Apple Music for "free" so decided to migrate after over ten years. Genuinely very happy with it!
Many of the complaints in the OP apply to Sonos too though, we brought into it years ago, and are incredible disappointed with the recent changes.
That's brave. I've never owned an iPad, are they are they a lot more resilient to being dropped than I think? My 2yo drops what they're playing with about 4 times per minute. I've settled for a yoto player which I don't let them pick up!
I moved my family plan from Spotify because they still don’t have an easy to use music locker solution. As an amateur producer I love to have my unreleased music always available. I was already a premium Youtube subscriber to get rid of ads and Youtube music was included. While the UI is not great I can appreciate that it can play and download music from Youtube as well that is not otherwise available on any of the other streaming services.
The way Spotify treats third party developers (including myself) with all the unfixed issues being broken for years was just the last nail in the coffin.
>Of course, there aren’t many alternatives for a comprehensive music-streaming service.
These days there are 10s of 1000s of radio stations with a web presence. From all over the world. Some have live DJs, some use automation, some have special syndicated programs. Over the years I've tried out many hundreds of them for an hour or two. Some are great! Many have multiple programs each day at regular times. It's a whole 'nother world. Some are college stations, some are long-time businesses like SOMA-FM.
I use VLC to listen to them (go to the 'Media' heading, select 'Open Media stream' and paste the URL ... instant play) , and to make a playlist to group stuff by genre or source-type.
Audio-quality-wise, if that's a concern, their bit-rates can vary from 50k to 320k. VLC can tell you that. Not a problem; if I don't like what I'm hearing today, I have lots of lossless favorites from my collection on a drive.
SOMA-FM has a great selection of genres you can try for starters. Or take a walk on the wild side by searching here [0], a site where all station info has been entered by users... including many that might be in your own neighborhood. Copy the URL and plug it into VLC.
Interesting how the reasoning is on the UI/algo side when it should be about how artists are treated. I "quit" Spotify or any other streaming service without even subscribing to them.
I also quit Spotify about 6 months ago and went back to Pandora. I’ve been super happy with that decision. Spotify kept me in a weird bubble of sorts always playing the same songs and artists. When I went back to Pandora I rediscovered that their music recommendation engine is amazing! I’m now listening to more new artists than ever and have found way more new music.
Perhaps I’m old but I never got into this at all. I have a very carefully curated collection of music which is combination of CD rips, stuff from bandcamp and bootlegs and piracy. I can’t possibly replicate this with any online music service.
I too am sick of Spotify. They make it harder and harder for me to access my own library and keep shoving 'recommendations' down my throat. If I want recommendations, I'll ask various meat-suit friends and family members whose musical tastes I respect.
Does anyone here have experience with Tidal? I have heard good things about them.
I found Apple Music is a big improvement over Spotify. The artist and browse pages are still full of algorithmic playlists unfortunately, but on your “Library” tab it functions just like an iPod with only music you’ve added to your library.
The biggest issue I have library-wise is with bad release year metadata often being incorrect for rereleases and remasters, and deluxe versions being the default. Irritating but small quarrels in the big scheme of things.
There's also ton of dubious stuff in the "ASMR" category you probably wouldn't want your kid have access to and that is not caught by the "Explicit" filter, see for instance (NSFW!)
Holy crap, that's straight up porn - no ASMR there. This is the same crap that used to be on those expensive phone services where you'd call and get charged insane amounts for.
This is the reason we cancelled Spotify and moved to Apple Music.
Not only do they have a bunch of adult content hidden in there, but they also have tons of "video podcasts" available via search that are compilations of TikTok and streamer trash (like the one you linked). So if you are trying to keep young kids away from TikTok, trash-level Minecraft streamers, etc, but assume Spotify is safe because it is just music, your kids will find it and start getting hooked on TikTok via Spotify. It's really terrible and insidious. It feels like the tech industry is conspiring to get small children hooked.
There is a thread several years old on Spotify support where people have been complaining about this and they have done nothing. They are prioritizing engagement via crappy podcasts over delivering a music product that works for a range of customers (families, etc).
BTW, Apple Music has been totally fine as a replacement. I actually like it more. And there is a web app that will move all your old playlists over in minutes, so there's very little hassle in switching.
> There is a thread several years old on Spotify support where people have been complaining about this and they have done nothing. They are prioritizing engagement via crappy podcasts over delivering a music product that works for a range of customers (families, etc).
I also remember that 2-3 years ago it was very easy to find hardcore porn images on Spotify, but at least they have fixed that, as this could have gotten them into real trouble. But otherwise, I think it's clear that Spotify has zero interest in disabling videos.
It's the same with Youtube, I actually had to resort to a third-party application (Freetube) to set up a curated list of channels for my kid he's allowed to watch, because it's not possible to do that in Youtube itself...
> It feels like the tech industry is conspiring to get small children hooked.
I think there's ample evidence that this is indeed the case.
I totally recommend Radio FIP (France Inter Paris) for anyone a little frustrated with Spotify. I listen to this for hours each day. I love every one of those hours.
Unlike Spotify, expert DJs select a wide range of music from genres that span the globe. Throughout the day, FIP curates an eclectic mix of genres—from jazz to rock, world music to classical—ensuring that I'm constantly exposed to various musical worlds without needing to curate or chase playlists myself.
FIP's programming is uninterrupted by DJs or ads, allowing for a seamless, immersive listening experience. The station's French commentary, when it occurs, adds a touch of charm without becoming a distraction, making it easy to "set it and forget it."
- "...We have removed all France Radio stations from TuneIn as per broadcaster request. We're sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for your understanding..."
Very much appreciate the suggestion. Thank you. I love these curated streams. Really good to have in the background. One I found a long time ago is Radio Paradise.
KEXP as well. My Apple Music consumption has gone way down after discovering this amazing terrestrial radio station. They put on great concerts also that can be viewed on YouTube.
With Spotify subcription hikes, one could buy a lot of music. Does a decent MP3 or FLAC store exists nowadays? For some specific albums it's nice to have the physical object of a CD, but in general I'd rather not buy the plastic discs just to rip and store indefinitely.
In 10 (5? 25?) years I'd be very interested to read an "insider story" book about Spotify, similar in scope as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Plex or something.
Spotify used to be cool and within the industry, the big example of engineering culture, agile with "the Spotify model" with squads and tribes etc. being able to adapt and ship stuff quickly.
But now somehow it seems they regressed into an organization that cannot ship basic features (stuff like lossless audio) for years, and that is more interested in pursuing legal action than in pursuing customers. Reading a book about why would be a good lesson for many people in IT.
I think there’s a wider issue plaguing the tech industry right now, and it’s not relegated to any one company. It seems this newest generation of product managers and owners has absolutely no clue how to research, develop and build upon features. It’s the only explanation I have and it’s something I’ve observed in every company I’ve been in. The roles are typically filled with very young people with absolutely no background to support it.
What I generally see is they are reactive largely to the whims of leadership, they don’t understand their users, they don’t do any research or testing, they don’t aim for ambitious new ideas (more often aping what other companies do), so we’ve ended up in this milieu of product experiences that feel weirdly homogenous and ultimately very unfitting with what the product should be.
I’m just a guy but I hope someone with a louder, more important megaphone writes up something soon on this because the industry needs to shine a spotlight on these folks.
Those of us who aren't deterred by self-hosting, I highly recommend using Roon. It allows you to use your own MP3s/FLACs/Wav, use Tidal/Qobyz for HQ streaming of things you don't have, and the best recommendation engine I've seen in music.
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[ 6.5 ms ] story [ 207 ms ] threadshitification thats spotify.
I would like to see a HN inspired web site that lists all of the bands and musicians where we can click on a link and go directly to the band or musicians web site and buy or download the music directly from them.
No middle man earning a small fortune off the backs of those talented musicians.
https://bandcamp.com/
I would love to see a Bandcamp streaming service which fairly compensates artists and has a more discovery focussed UI, but they don’t seem that interested in evolving the product for whatever reason (they have had a fairly rough sounding series of acquisitions)
There's also the Discover tool at the bottom of their homepage which includes 'artist-recommended', a new and notable section, and they have regular blog posts for various genres.
You could also try https://bc-explorer.app/
I never understood people's fetishization of albums and "enjoying" an album and all the music app interfaces created around that. I just want a cloud or self hosted version of winamp, where jumping to the next song or queueing it up from my playlist is a hotkey away rather than 12 clicks on a crowded interface.
Been moving to navidrome but i expect to eventually need some workarounds to get what i want.
Edit: also the poor implementation that is smart shuffle and shoving it down my throat
Think about it as an opera. Of course, Nessum Dorma sounds great by itself, but wouldn't it hit different if you hear it in the context of the whole story, with emotional buildup and everything?
There are concept/themed albums where the songs tell a story and you are supposed to listen them from start to finish.
Also several times an album is actually how the artists themselves wanted to release/listen/publish their songs (instead of individual tracks with no relation among them)
Some albums are written to be enjoyed as a whole. A song might set up the next. Listening to an artist album by album gives you an idea of their progression. This might not be for everyone but surely isn't alien.
I know, I know, this sounds way too pretentious and elitist...
Basically, some music is made to be digested in small, radio/club-sized pieces and I argue that most of it does so not to fulfill an artistic vision. There are some exceptions, using this opportunity to maximize "streamlining" (I mean, I listen to some Eurobeat, so I fully understand that) and St Exupery's famous "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away", but that's definitely not the rule.
Also, people already drew pretty good comparisons to opera and other stuff that loses too much by being listened on a single track basis.
Addendum: elitism may have a very double-plus-ungood connotation in the current year, but I've never heard a valid, factual argument against it; which is even funnier when you realize the kind of people conditioned to react this way to the word have a similar filter for "populism".
It's basically one of the modern "witches" arguments.
I've always found strange that judging musical taste (or lack of it) is so controversial compared to other forms of art. If you say that people who only watch MCU movies or haven't read more than Harry Potter/Twilight are "plebeians" (or whatever less offensive word you want to use... philistine?), you'll get way less outrage than by stating something similar about music.
In the end, I think the disagreement may stem from two points: "plebeian" is automatically seen as an insult, not a possibly accurate (if condescending) descriptor and the usual extreme relativism that caring about music is should as universal as caring about tractors.
For sure there are albums that are like that, i just don't tend to listen to music like that. I listen to a song, i think "oh, i want to listen to that next", queue it up and forget i wanted to listen to it until it comes up and i feel good about hearing that song i wanted.
And definitely far from the greatest hits only - that's a pretty stretchy conclusion.
edit: the problem i have at the end of the day, is forcing EVERYONE to organize their music and listening like that because the artist says "this is how you must listen to music". Sometimes i know the song i like and i just want to pick them out instead of browsing through another layer of albums that hide the list of songs by an artist.
I mean, I won't force people not to put ketchup in all their dishes, including when going to a 1-star Michelin restaurant, but if that's not the dictionary definition of "pleb", I don't know what is.
I don't necessarily listen to ALL of it at once, I will mostly be queueing up what i want to listen to next constantly and skip through what i don't feel like listening to right now (if the platform allows it easily, which i'm struggling to find again). On another day in another mood, that same song i skipped previously might be just what i need.
Almost as if i can choose my meal and my dessert independently every day depending on what i feel like eating.
edit: and occasionally, it may be a $500 aubergine steak - when i want it to be.
About meal and dessert, I've never experienced a strong and justified coupling between these; actually, I always rinse my mouth with water between dishes to fully embrace the taste divide.
BTW, there is winamp-js, which is Winamp in your browser. I think the Winamp clone AIMP has a web-interface, but I could be wrong.
The issue is almost every good music application assumes an organization style by artist/album, which in the modern world, may not be how things still work. To me, albums are a suggestion/release unit.
They kept changing stuff, breaking my work flow, with every change it felt like there was more friction to listen to the music and podcasts I wanted, and less friction to listen to algorithmically selected slop I didn't want to listen to. Eventually I just said fuck it. I don't need this source of stress and frustration in my life. I've never looked back.
I'm on youtube music now. In many ways it's a worse product, but it at least stays the same and doesn't keep trying to make me change my listening behavior.
I suspect Spotify's problem is that they have (or had) too many developers, so you get this pressure to look busy "improving" the product, with endless lateral change as a result instead.
But, the industry does also have a "Developers Gotta Develop" problem. The way I've seen it explained is: "Programmers are like beavers. Leave a beaver alone to decide what to do and they'll just keep building dams, regardless of the fact that their home is done." I don't know if that's really true about beavers, but it's true about software organizations. The whole software development team will just continue changing the software even long past the point where they're done.
I swear I am not trying to be clever and throwing you a gotcha. I just never had any issues, and it may be down to how I use the service. Genuinely curious to how other people use it.
In my case, I only ever use Spotify on Android (or android auto if I am driving). I mostly listen to playlists I crafted myself. Sometimes I listen to one podcast or another when working out, but that's rare (I mostly listen to music).
What I am trying to say is that I barely interact with the UI at all - as it should be, I just want to listen to stuff. What is so bad about it?
- when they use to break local files playback (where you have your own mp3) every few months
- when "add to queue" function started lagging
- when "add to queue" stopped working for a day or two hntil it was fixed
- there was a week when I couldn't listen downloaded playlists in airplane mode. For some reason.
- constant changes in desktop app context menu by moving items "add to playlist" and "add to queue" around
- "smart shuffle" I don't use it but now I need to click shuffle twice. And it's lagging
- ios app is progressively getting slower and slower
- I use it for music so I don't need audiobooks and podcasts. I can't hide them and they take so much space
I moved to Apple Music in 2018 and regret nothing.
spotify has to try and distinguish or expand as seen with the heavy podcast investments and they desperately need hit features if they want to compete with the companies and stay profitable. for reference i believe this year will be the first profitable one
I want the ability to shuffle my library/play the latest releases/whatever while leaving albums intact.
I want to play the entirety of one album in order, then play another album in order, and so on.
Anyone know of an app that does this? I'll drop spotify today if some other streaming service can do this.
But now I imagine most people don't mind looking at the app every 30-90 minutes to choose a new album.
Also just looking at my saved albums in Spotify there's loads of crap in there just because I've downloaded it offline once in the past 10 odd years. A shuffle of these albums would suck.
So they'd probably have to fix the saving/favouring of albums before allowing shuffling of them.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/albums-album-focused-player/id...
[1] https://github.com/airsonic-advanced/airsonic-advanced
[2] https://github.com/daneren2005/Subsonic
Many of the complaints in the OP apply to Sonos too though, we brought into it years ago, and are incredible disappointed with the recent changes.
> Whole family uses Apple products
I cannot prove it but I feel a contradiction
The cost decision is "given we have purchased x, which service costs more?"
I think that's a pretty nice TCO right there.
That's brave. I've never owned an iPad, are they are they a lot more resilient to being dropped than I think? My 2yo drops what they're playing with about 4 times per minute. I've settled for a yoto player which I don't let them pick up!
Meanwhile I see kids at similar ages going around with phones that have screens that are just a complete mush of broken glass. Dunno why.
https://youtu.be/yDWgOwb8kj4
These days there are 10s of 1000s of radio stations with a web presence. From all over the world. Some have live DJs, some use automation, some have special syndicated programs. Over the years I've tried out many hundreds of them for an hour or two. Some are great! Many have multiple programs each day at regular times. It's a whole 'nother world. Some are college stations, some are long-time businesses like SOMA-FM.
I use VLC to listen to them (go to the 'Media' heading, select 'Open Media stream' and paste the URL ... instant play) , and to make a playlist to group stuff by genre or source-type.
Audio-quality-wise, if that's a concern, their bit-rates can vary from 50k to 320k. VLC can tell you that. Not a problem; if I don't like what I'm hearing today, I have lots of lossless favorites from my collection on a drive.
SOMA-FM has a great selection of genres you can try for starters. Or take a walk on the wild side by searching here [0], a site where all station info has been entered by users... including many that might be in your own neighborhood. Copy the URL and plug it into VLC.
[0] https://www.radio-browser.info/#!/
Does anyone here have experience with Tidal? I have heard good things about them.
The biggest issue I have library-wise is with bad release year metadata often being incorrect for rereleases and remasters, and deluxe versions being the default. Irritating but small quarrels in the big scheme of things.
I found out the hard way that Spotify features tons of videos and that you cannot disable them. See for instance
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5KS759AlVGVj34OHPbcx1p
There's also ton of dubious stuff in the "ASMR" category you probably wouldn't want your kid have access to and that is not caught by the "Explicit" filter, see for instance (NSFW!)
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3AxgfSNuDgYnz54lT4jkmT
Needless to say, I immediately canceled the Spotify family account.
Not only do they have a bunch of adult content hidden in there, but they also have tons of "video podcasts" available via search that are compilations of TikTok and streamer trash (like the one you linked). So if you are trying to keep young kids away from TikTok, trash-level Minecraft streamers, etc, but assume Spotify is safe because it is just music, your kids will find it and start getting hooked on TikTok via Spotify. It's really terrible and insidious. It feels like the tech industry is conspiring to get small children hooked.
There is a thread several years old on Spotify support where people have been complaining about this and they have done nothing. They are prioritizing engagement via crappy podcasts over delivering a music product that works for a range of customers (families, etc).
BTW, Apple Music has been totally fine as a replacement. I actually like it more. And there is a web app that will move all your old playlists over in minutes, so there's very little hassle in switching.
Yes, see for instance
https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Add-quot-remove-...
https://community.spotify.com/t5/Premium-Family/How-can-I-fi...
I also remember that 2-3 years ago it was very easy to find hardcore porn images on Spotify, but at least they have fixed that, as this could have gotten them into real trouble. But otherwise, I think it's clear that Spotify has zero interest in disabling videos.
It's the same with Youtube, I actually had to resort to a third-party application (Freetube) to set up a curated list of channels for my kid he's allowed to watch, because it's not possible to do that in Youtube itself...
> It feels like the tech industry is conspiring to get small children hooked.
I think there's ample evidence that this is indeed the case.
Unlike Spotify, expert DJs select a wide range of music from genres that span the globe. Throughout the day, FIP curates an eclectic mix of genres—from jazz to rock, world music to classical—ensuring that I'm constantly exposed to various musical worlds without needing to curate or chase playlists myself.
FIP's programming is uninterrupted by DJs or ads, allowing for a seamless, immersive listening experience. The station's French commentary, when it occurs, adds a touch of charm without becoming a distraction, making it easy to "set it and forget it."
Do yourself a favour...
- "...We have removed all France Radio stations from TuneIn as per broadcaster request. We're sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for your understanding..."
:
https://old.reddit.com/r/tunein/comments/1buoei7/fip_radio_r...
Streams: https://gist.github.com/harperreed/b5ceabbbbca0a79d478ec0b81...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Paradise
Edit: Love these wide curated music. I think what makes me love FIP and RP is it puts you into a good/mellow/calm mood.
Spotify used to be cool and within the industry, the big example of engineering culture, agile with "the Spotify model" with squads and tribes etc. being able to adapt and ship stuff quickly.
But now somehow it seems they regressed into an organization that cannot ship basic features (stuff like lossless audio) for years, and that is more interested in pursuing legal action than in pursuing customers. Reading a book about why would be a good lesson for many people in IT.
What I generally see is they are reactive largely to the whims of leadership, they don’t understand their users, they don’t do any research or testing, they don’t aim for ambitious new ideas (more often aping what other companies do), so we’ve ended up in this milieu of product experiences that feel weirdly homogenous and ultimately very unfitting with what the product should be.
I’m just a guy but I hope someone with a louder, more important megaphone writes up something soon on this because the industry needs to shine a spotlight on these folks.