I've done it. I've finally reached my "old man yells at cloud" moment. Why, why, WHY is Spotify adding features straight out of the social media playbook?

Anybody have recommendations for alternatives?

In my head there's:

~~YouTube music~~ (google, gross)

~~Apple music~~ (no way they're not on a similar trajectory)

~~Bandcamp~~ (limited, but at least bands see some money from it)

~~SoundCloud~~ (weird reputation, though haven't come back around to it in a good 10 years)

Tidal maybe? Would love to hear some recommendations.

Edit: I neglected to mention why I don't like the messaging feature. I've never used it, yet with a few of my friends there are already dozens of song exchanges in the thread. It's clear that spotify has been using user-specific links for a while now to track who sends what to who. That's a pretty clear anti-feature for me, and is enough to make me jump ship.

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[–] waddle_dee@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yes, they do. However, they don't meet the criteria of my other three points.

[–] Eyekaytee@aussie.zone 0 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Payout to artists

They pay out more to artists than literally anyone else?

For another year, Spotify was the highest-paying retailer globally — paying the music industry over $10 billion in 2024. This brings total lifetime payouts to nearly $60 billion.

Ease of use

I don't find Spotify difficult to use at all

No idea about privacy policy

[–] waddle_dee@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Payout per stream is a more effective delineation than the total payout. I listen to some niche artists and if I'm streaming, I want to maximize their profit off my streaming.
Regarding ease of use, my issues with Spotify came in the form of all the AI slop they have pushed. They may have toned it down, but I won't subscribe out of principle.
They have not respected user privacy, therefore their policy is useless.

May I ask why me having a positive opinion of Spotify is important?

[–] Eyekaytee@aussie.zone 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

They have not respected user privacy

What do you mean by this? How haven't they?

I listen to some niche artists and if I’m streaming, I want to maximize their profit off my streaming.

That's funny so do I, I listen to a lot of music and the majority are not popular, this helps increase the share of the pie so the artists I listen to get paid more

May I ask why me having a positive opinion of Spotify is important?

It's not

[–] waddle_dee@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Sun Times literally just released this article regarding the most recent privacy concerns.
The graphic from Statista below shows that Tidal is one of the higher payouts for streaming. Spotify does not pay as well as Tidal. This is factually accurate.
Yeah, that was weak on my part. I shouldn't have said that. I let my emotions get the better of me, and for that, I am sorry.

[–] Eyekaytee@aussie.zone 0 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

did you have the actual concern? i read the article and didn’t see any actual privacy issues besides:

the company’s algorithm-driven model that relies heavily on user data collection

do they really think i care that spotify knows what i listen to and when i listen to it in order to give me recommendations?

it’s one of the rare cases on the internetweb where im more than happy to give them as much data as they want in exchange for giving me better recommendations for artists and songs that i might like and listen to

The graphic from Statista below shows that Tidal is one of the higher payouts for streaming

that chart isn’t accurate at all because that’s not how pay per stream works

it might be true that tidal has a high payout rate per stream, but if you notice on the right is how many listeners there are, tidal has n/a vs spotify’s 265 million, i believe its up to 276 million now

there’s straight up just more people streaming which dilutes the pay per stream because there’s more people streaming than ever, billions of streams every hour

spotify’s streaming rate is variable for each artist because it’s your number of monthly streams x your total share of all streams

the more streams you get, the bigger the share, the higher the payout, there are millions of artists getting plenty of streams and are very happy with what they’re getting

spotify also has different rates depending on where you are and what your plan is, so im on premium and live in australia so my payout per stream is near the top, someone on an ad supported plan in india is paying out a fraction of what i do, but maybe that ad supported indian user will get a good job soon and enjoys spotify but hates the ads so he gets premium, adding to the pool that gets paid out to artists and spotify is #1 by a long way

also funny that the company with unlimited money (apple) has such a low payout rate on that inaccurate chart, vs spotify which pays out 70% of its companies revenues to rights holders

Spotify pays out about 70% of its gross revenue to rightsholders. That’s a significant portion of their income. In accounting terms, their cost of goods sold is 70%. Tidal also pays out around 70% of its revenues to rightsholders

https://blog.discmakers.com/2025/06/why-does-spotify-pay-the-lowest-royaltie/#h-TOC_01

whatever works though

[–] waddle_dee@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Alright, I'm good with arguing now. I don't want to anymore. It's clear we have different opinions, mine hasn't changed and I believe yours has not, as well. Have a great day!

[–] Eyekaytee@aussie.zone 0 points 5 days ago

I think we both agree piracy is bad though :)

https://aussie.zone/post/25191147/19119941

at least tidal and spotify are paying artists something