I've been on tidal for like a year and like it. What's Block Inc and why shouldn't I support them?
Edit: nvm I'm a dumbass who didn't realize what community this was lol
this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2025
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When it comes to music streaming, it’s a little simplistic to state only their COO, also important to note how much each service pays out to the artists (many of whom are European). Tidal is originally Norwegian but due to financial difficulties now has majority ownership by Block Inc. its true, but it also has one of the highest per stream payouts to artists.
Qobuz does too, and that’s a French company.
Ofc music streaming in general is never going to compensate artists as much as buying a CD/Vinyl/Tape or going to a concert.
Tidal is also the only streaming service that has a (albeit unofficial) HiFi linux client. At that point I don't care about whatever others offer, it's the only one that provides the service I seek.
Pre submit edit: I searched if Qobuz had a hifi compatible unnoficial linux client and it apparently does (or you can WINE it without damages to the sound quality). I might swap to go full european...
Look into the extension player echo for an open source wrapper for these services. Best app on my phone right now. Its one of those annoying new wave projects that operates entirely out of discord for downloads and dev docs, but compiling from git is always an option.
come by anytime you want we can party. i have been online since forever and i have several mp3s
i have so many that weren't Tom Waits or Weird Al
I JUST signed up for tidal after dumping spotify wtf guys A LITTLE LATE
Use spot tube
Oh fuck, I'm with Deezer... are there any options left?
It's not majority owned. Also, the development team is in France. I don't think this is a problem. If you think this is a problem then you can't use any product from Europe. There is always some American who bought their stocks.
Yes, after reading carefully I came to the same conclusion... there is simply no company that is "perfect", we can only evaluate what we can and decide if the level of "dirt" is acceptable
I was going to say Bandcamp, but it was sold to Songtradr.
You can choose products developed in Europe. It doesn't matter whether some American has their money invested.
I’m about to try Quboz from another comment I read somewhere. They’re a French company.
Spotube
SoundCloud has enormous variety. Are they jerks too?
☠️?
Yes, I do for pretty much everything but it's a bit of a hassle for new music discovery and to play everywhere
I only use spotify for discovering music.
I then download it (lucida.to is the best tool I have used so far) or buy it.
I got an mp3 player for like €13 on aliexpress, but that broke a day or so ago (rip).
Mp3 player
No SD card, no headphone jack.
Both not problems that prevent me from using my phone as an MP3 player. I have about 1000 songs on there and plenty of storage free, plus a USB-C to 3.5mm stereo jack adapter. I just keep the dongle attached to the end of the headphone cord and it's fine.
all of those usbc - 3.5mm adaptors have been utter shit in my experience. even the fancy expensive "official" ones crackly and disconnect.
Currently waiting on a fucking 3.5mm to bluetooth just because i can't trust any of the usbc adaptors I've bought.
it's definitely much more than €13, but if you're the right kind of nerd for that kind of thing, there's Tangara
I've seen a lot of good things said about tangara. I'll look into it, thanks!
If you want to support musical artists, pay to see them live and buy a t-shirt or something.
But for listening... Don't pay some disgusting corporation to trickle a fraction of a fraction of a penny to your fave artist. That's not actual support, just corporate propaganda. Instead download or watch on youtube (with ad blockers).
I'd love to see some of them live, but fuck all those bullshit ticketmaster fees. I'll stick to buying their vinyls.
~~Support by listening to them on a paid Spotify account~~ Trump supporter
~~Support by listening to them on a paid Deezer account~~ owned by some other big company
~~Support by listening to them on a paid Tidal account~~ owned by some other big company
~~Support by going to their concert~~ Ticketmaster fees and practices
~~Support by buying vinyls~~ ...
Everything is enshitified and overrun by late stage capitalism
My perspective may be off but is €150000 a lot? I'd be curious to know if they donated anything to other similar Democrat events (and in other countries). I'd be more sceptical seeing Spotify donate to Trump's actual campaign, but donating to the inauguration of a democraticly elected president doesn't seem insane to me, even if the president is as awful as Trump.
Another reason is that Spotify has been making AI generated music to try to avoid paying royalties to real artists.
Couldn't find anything on Spotify donating to Biden's inauguration, but you can see an unsurprising trend in company donations: https://www.newsweek.com/tech-ceos-donations-donald-trump-joe-biden-inaugurations-compared-2010457
Ideally, companies wouldn't use their massive wealth to bribe any elected president, much less with such a clear political agenda.
They did also resign joe rogan in 2024 to give him a $250 million dollar deal. He's played a huge part in radicalizing his listeners.
Ah, I read Re-sign as forced resignation.
Much better example, thanks. I remember that deal really upset their staff.
- Doesn't matter if it's relatively a lot. It is objectively a lot of money. They could have donated it to a worthy cause like starving people.
- It's Trump. They should have donated $0.
- It doesn't matter if they're democratically elected or not. Being elected doesn't mean you're good.
Tidal is still the better streaming service, if you really need one, but it's starting to suck.... Bandcamp is the best of option to support artist.
I love every time this topic comes up folks be like "buy directly from the artist" or " use this other platform that is less evil" and the chads going on about "just pirate stuff, haven't payed for music in years ".
Hilarious. Myopic, limited, and / or dumb perspectives.
Would I love to pay directly to the artist? Sure, but their latest album costs as much as 6 months streaming in my country, and I only like a couple of songs, maybe. And let's not even go to the K-pop realm where I've seen a mini album with 5 songs cost as much as a year of streaming.
Pirate stuff? Well, excuse me for not dwelling in waters that may lead me to be drowned. Also, guess what? Some of us have niche or varied tastes that don't end up in some dark corner of the internet whilst most of these evil streamers have everything.
I prefer to wait every time one of these evil streaming sites puts up a 3 months free promotion or something like that and just use a new mail address with some fake info and enjoy.
Pirate stuff? Well, excuse me for not dwelling in waters that may lead me to be drowned. Also, guess what? Some of us have niche or varied tastes that don’t end up in some dark corner of the internet whilst most of these evil streamers have everything.
You're welcome.
A lot of albums on Bandcamp are "pay what you want". I just got 12 albums last friday (Bandcamp friday, all the money goes to artists) for around 15$. It's not much but it's way more then they would get from my streams on Tidal. I do this pretty much every month, and I have hundreds of albums. There's ton of way to support musicians, even with a few bucks.
the amount of money from your streaming subscription that actually goes to your favourite artist is negligible (especially with Spotify, as they won't even pay any money to niche artists before they reach a certain amount of plays). I'd rather get my collection stored for completely offline listening, available in a high quality format and playable through any music player that I currently fancy using instead of a clumsy streaming app that tries to shove podcasts in my face or doesn't know how to shuffle properly, and then every few months spend the equivalent of two or three months of Spotify on an album that I really like on Bandcamp, preferably on a Bandcamp Friday, when Bandcamp doesn't take any cut from the purchase.
Drown? Does you country seriously pursuit piracy that hard? Sorry, that sucks. Us Americans have it lucky being able to just vpn that kind of traffic.
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Qobuz is a great French alternative
Does it have DRM?
I'm testing Qobuz right now and I really like it. I'm just not sure if I'm not going to miss the mixtape, song radio and user playlist features of Spotify. I do like that Qobuz is less bloated and more focused on music though and that Qobuz' "worst" music quality is Spotify's best.
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