Spotify’s 2nd price hike in a year raises prices in July by up to $3
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Well I've had enough. Forget Spotify - I'm going to dig out my GE transistor radio and listen to WABC AM from NYC- who can't see the advantage of FREE music anytime you want it. Forget podcasts, Cousin Brucie is there when you need him, not to forget Dr. Dimento. And I can pirate music just by holding up my tape recorder to the speaker and hitting record (if I can get the red part of that button to press in in just the right way). If I record just 15 songs a month, imagine how many I'll have over the years! And it's all legal. There was time when a playlist was a lot of work and really meant something - I'm going back to that time. Now off to the store to get some sweeeeeet Maxell metal tapes. Outrageous that I'd pay for anything else.
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If you're playing radios for the purpose of listening to new music it makes sense to pick the stream over whatever you happened to download last time you were on a plane or whatever.
I think the real issue is that they don't just buffer one or two full songs ahead. Spotify uses (or used to use) something like 128kbit/s Ogg Vorbis at their typical streaming quality level. That's like 4-5MB/song at most, and I've seen its cache take up around 30GB before.
My assumption is that the labels demanded they don't store that much on the device because what it people figure out how to decrypt it or something...
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or perhaps pay artists better? Spotify has a lock on “worst payment rates to the artists who make their product valuable”.
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Out of everything, this pisses me off the most. Tidal and Apple Music both have lossless libraries. Apple even has some things with Dolby Atmos so you can get surround feel when you move your head. Nothing like spending good money on a set of nice headphones to listen to compressed music. I got fed up with Spotify's lack of lossless about six months ago, and switched to Apple Music. It's not without drawbacks, but all the music I've listened to is lossless. Just kinda sucks that I've got to move 13+ years of playlists over.
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Hi valued customer,
You can request a cancellation link at our website by navigating to our Contact Us > Cancellations > Are You Sure? > Are You Really, Really Sure? > Wouldn't You Like A One Month Discount On A 3-Year Subscription? > Click on our AI Chatbot > Follow all instructions, answer all questions and offers similar to what you have just refused > Call the +91 number supplied (India country code, international call charges apply) for our call center (Please note that it is only open 8am-11am, 2pm-5pm New Delhi local time) and our customer service representative (singular, it's just one guy so you might have to wait) will read the cancellation link to you!
Thank you and we are sorry to see you go!
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When you subscribe to Apple Music make sure to download the classical music app as well. Easily the best classical streaming experience out there. You can argue about which service is good for this or that but there's really no comparison for classical music.
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i have some old spotify premium plan that includes hulu (with ads) for free. Sometimes i feel like it holds me hostage to both services as ill never get it back if i drop it, but it makes spotify premium semi worth it when comparing to tidal or apple music
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SolarPatrolman
Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
Another reason I'm glad I canceled my subscription nearly thirteen years ago & moved over to Pandora.
I can't stand this company, especially after Ek (their CEO) said this:
And this just happened today: "Spotify CEO does damage control after his 'reductive' comments about creators spark backlash"
I can't stand this company, especially after Ek (their CEO) said this:
So I guess he meant they gotta keep pumping out "product" to keep the shareholders & upper management happy?
And this just happened today: "Spotify CEO does damage control after his 'reductive' comments about creators spark backlash"
Wow, I didn't know creating music from scratch was so cheap! Does that also mean it doesn't require much time, or physical & mental effort? If so, I'm gonna be a Next Big Thing by next month!
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When do they announce the raise they’re giving to the artists that give them their entire business?
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Try checking them out again. I had very few issues finding artists when I was given 3 months free
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Who could have imagined that making people pay for the privilege to have Joe Rogan stuffed down their throats could backfire? Nobody, really. Nobody could have anticipated such a thing.
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They acquired the app when they bought another company. This really was a case of Apple buying something good, then allowing the product it bought to continue doing what it's good at. (See also: Beats.)
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If you're using iOS, the cancellation maze is going to your Apple ID, tapping Subscriptions, and tapping Cancel on the one you want to stop. Well, it used to be. Now Spotify finally has the freedom to build the cancellation maze that
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Yes, giving money to garbage people is one thing, forcing me to constantly face the fact that I'm supporting it was too much. So I left. I'm not even joking.
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When on a Windows box I use Cider to use Apple Music. It’s miles better than Apple’s music app. On my Mac and iPhone I just use the native Apple apps.
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Tried to go “all-in” on music streaming back when Google Play Music was a thing, then Spotify early on. Once I realize songs could just be gone because of licensing BS, I restored my personal music files, installed MusicBee and never looked back. I really feel sorry for people paying for this shit.
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How is Spotify not profitable? They barely pay the music artists anything.
I know the answer, there's a shitty podcaster that gets millions and same for their CEO, but still.
This company needs to end.
I know the answer, there's a shitty podcaster that gets millions and same for their CEO, but still.
This company needs to end.
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Spotify is bad for one specific podcast in a sea of millions of podcasters, while Apple, which is an abusive monopolist is good. At least if you're aiming for the moral highground go Tidal or Deezer or even Youtube.
On a general note... so many commentators are just venting completely off topic. All of them Apple fanboys looking to score one for their team.
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I use Tidal since several years now, and while I cannot really agree its recommendation algorithm is better than Spotify (in fact, I find quite bit worse), they do have an AppleTV app at least.
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Yeah, interestingly, Tidal recently shut down its high end/often lossless quality premium subscription and instead gave all those features to regular subscribers. Don’t know how often that happens!
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Yeah, when I joined a few years back, Tidal was missing a few more indie artists. These days, it seems much more complete.
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Perhaps check again. They have a shed-load of electronic, jazz, metal, dub and classical. They also have Tidal Connect, which does the same thing as Spotify Connect.
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There would be more if they hadn't pulled out of much of the world...
I would still be using them.
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Same thing, but they haven't got it out into anywhere near as many devices, and I don't think there's an OSS implementation for those rolling their own.
Spotify have done well on the ubiquity (is that another reason they lose so much money over 18 years?) - getting hardware manufacturers to include Tidal is probably like making Bing the default search on iPhone....
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Spotify‘s utter lack of innovation is despicable. I don’t want podcasts or audiobooks . Make a separate app for god’s sake.
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“You can’t record music once every three to four years and think that’s going to be enough. The artists today that are making it realise that it’s about creating a continuous engagement with their fans.
I suspect what he meant was artists putting out songs every few months instead of holding them back for an album every few years. One song every 3 months is 12 in 3 years, same as a traditional album. I listen to a lot of Latin American artists, this is a common thing there. Some wrap the songs up into an album after releasing them (like Natti Natasha's Nasty Singles album), but others just put out a bunch of songs without making albums.
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Some of us do both. I own 1,100+ albums in FLAC format either ripped from CDs or purchased in FLAC format from qobuz.
I also have an Amazon Music sub to find new albums to buy, and finding albums NOT to buy when a listen or three doesn't grab me.. I used to have to blind-buy albums based on a review or hearing one song, only to end up disappointed.
Well, isn't that what friends are for?
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I suppose the problem for spotify is that it needs to show growth to keep investors happy. Which at this size, and being well established is hard without forcing new shit into consumers lives. And without that growth, how will the poor C Suite get the bonuses they need to afford their ramen?
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I'm just over here chilling with YouTube Music, enjoying my album-centric music listening style and no YT ads...
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I'm old fashioned. I still buy mp3s, download them to my device, and play them locally. I've never really understood the desire for streaming music. And that's not me being hoity-toity - I really don't understand the benefit of streaming music. But I also haven't tried it since the early 2000s and the service I tried did this thing where it would ask what you like, it would start playing that, and then it would wander further and further away from what I had told it I wanted to hear. I found that annoying so I went back to my locally stored music and never looked back.
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Given the absolute pittance being paid to the artists I have no idea where all this extra subscriber cash is going. Everyone is getting tired of subscription services price gouging the users by introducing a load of unwanted shit there is no demand for. If you want audiobooks there's Audible. If you want podcasts fire up the app of your choice. Ultimately the world of rent-seeking services like this have no long term future.
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Seems increasingly attractive to be honest despite the ridiculous UX change from Google Play Music (god knows they never reversed it).
And hey if you have YouTube premium anyway may as well just use it.
Also I can load personal music files into YouTube Music to play via chromecast, smart-tvs, Apple TV, etc... whereas with Spotify I can't do that.
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"Ek didn't announce price changes at the time but noted that Spotify often reviews its “value-to-price” ratio in relation to subscription prices"
It's cute how Mr. Ek appears to see the process of reviewing that ratio as one of making necessary price increases when it gets too high; as opposed to reckoning with the fact that you can't unfocused-growth your way out of a value-to-price ratio of less than 1.
It's cute how Mr. Ek appears to see the process of reviewing that ratio as one of making necessary price increases when it gets too high; as opposed to reckoning with the fact that you can't unfocused-growth your way out of a value-to-price ratio of less than 1.
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They pay record companies a lot in terms of their revenue. Very little of that money makes it to artists.
This is a wider problem in the music business than just Spotify.
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Yeah, same. YT Music's rough start really hurt it (and it deserved that), but these days it works pretty well. Can even upload my own mp3s to it and then cast them to things like my Home speakers, and if you also use Youtube it's pretty price competitive.
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