Spotify’s 2nd price hike in a year raises prices in July by up to $3

Spotify last raised prices in July 2023.

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[HiroTheProtagonist]

What counts as "decent recommendations" is probably pretty variable. I found Spotify's recommendations were awful for me and YT Music did far better, but I don't think thats the typical experience.

It does definitely tick all those boxes, though. Been using it for a while and it's done the job.

I originally tried YTM when Fi offered a free Premium trial, and it's been pretty good in that regard for me. I don't necessarily love everything in the Discover Mix, but I rarely ever skip tracks in it because they're usually pretty good at finding things similar to my searches. It also helps that YTM is bundled with Premium, because I don't think I'd be willing to pay $14/month for either one, but together I get no ads on YouTube and a decent music service.

That said, if audio quality is important, just use Deezer or Tidal. YTM is usually decent in terms of audio quality, but I've definitely found some tracks that sounded like they were recorded by holding a phone speaker to a gaming headset mic.

 

[HiroTheProtagonist]

Spotify: Still offering nothing that you can't build yourself with a $400 minicomputer and open-source software.

It's crazy to me that so many on what was formerly a site for techies pay monthly for things that are trivial to build. At least running your own personal video site takes a lot of storage. The same is not at all true for music. (And if you need a service to help you discover new music, it's time to reevaluate your peer network.)

I wasn't aware that a $400 minicomputer and open-source software offered me legal access to over 100 million songs. Clearly I've been out of the loop.

 

[HiroTheProtagonist]

Sometimes I think I’m the only one who listens to Pandora.

I used them right after their awkward "every single station eventually leads to some obscure indie band who doesn't demand high royalties" phase, and they were alright. The main trick to using the free version was to pick either Grateful Dead or other prog rock stuff so you could game their "3 songs per ad" system by getting the 15+ minute live versions.

 

[HiroTheProtagonist]

I'm not going to willingly give money to Google or Apple. Tidal's library is laughable. Pandora's randomization and auto-playlisting/suggestion engine has been terrible for years.

My switching costs are low - I don't make playlists, I think it's weird that people use Spotify's "Social" aspects, and I have no interest in podcasts or audiobooks. Seems a bit ridiculous that there doesn't seem to be an alternative music streaming service for the no-frills user.

So you want the library of Spotify but with none of the parts that subsidize it (the audiobooks/podcasts are bigger profit centers than the music).

You could always just use whatever the most recent version of ReVanced is available to get ad-free YouTube so that you get your music without giving money to Google. Definitely more clunky, but considering you're a "no-frills" user I'd imagine that wouldn't bother you.

 

[HiroTheProtagonist]

How can they not be profitable? They're not actually producing their "product" and they supposedly pay the actual music makers pennies. Where does all the money go? Is Taylor Swift getting it all ?

As others posted earlier, the majority of the money goes to the record labels, who then dole out pennies to the artists. If Spotify could pay out what the record labels pay out to the artists directly without the labels interfering and demanding a cut, they'd do that instead.