this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2025
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Music

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Spotify Is Social Media Now? (newsroom.spotify.com)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) by sunstoned@lemmus.org to c/music@lemmy.world
 

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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[–] roserose56@lemmy.zip 5 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

Its funny how people are still using Spotify when other services exist. But yea people, complain about Spotify and it's features.

Edit: if you don't like something quit it, don't complain. Companies don't understand until numbers start dropping.

[–] Jarix@lemmy.world 1 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

I went to Spotify from Tidal because Tidal just didn't have the music I wanted to listen to.

I can't see myself wording until there's is a service that just has all music that I'm able to find through Spotify. Sad but true.

[–] roserose56@lemmy.zip 1 points 6 hours ago

Deezer, qobuz, bandcamp and goes on.

[–] mcforest@feddit.org 31 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Buying and ripping CDs is my way to go. Completely without social media features.

[–] Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

That’s so much effort and clutter when you can just download MP3s or FLACs from the web.

[–] roserose56@lemmy.zip 1 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Indeed, with services like bandcamp, Beatport and Trax source, you can download load MP4, WAV and many more.

[–] Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 17 hours ago

I was thinking more getting into OPH or RED or using SLSK, but whatever you like to do!

[–] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 17 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The social aspect is talking to the cashier.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] victorz@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

What even...

[–] realitista@lemmus.org 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I'm so glad I still just buy and maintain my own local music library.

[–] Shayeta@feddit.org 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (5 children)

Same, but I still want some form of a recommendation engine. I also want to discover new music.

[–] lemmyknow@lemmy.today 1 points 3 hours ago
[–] t0fr@lemmy.ca 1 points 18 hours ago

Can always discover using YouTube Music with an ad blocker. Then add what you like to you local collection. Or use something like last.fm to track everything you listen to, no matter the platform, and get recommendations that way

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[–] ABetterTomorrow@sh.itjust.works 3 points 20 hours ago

Spotify customers created a bigger evil

[–] e8d79@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I recently cancelled spotify and switched to a selfhosted navidrome server to stream my personal music collection.

[–] t0fr@lemmy.ca 1 points 18 hours ago

I've done the same thing. Works real nice. Using Symfonium on my Android phone

[–] 6nk06@sh.itjust.works 20 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Bandcamp because you discover music since albums are so cheap.

Qobuz is good IMHO. I've heard good things about Tidal too.

[–] compostgoblin@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 21 hours ago

I left Spotify for TIDAL a couple months ago. No complaints here!

[–] marighost@piefed.social 5 points 1 day ago

I'm content with tidal for now. I mainly listen to music on my desktop, and I like that it's just music. No podcasts or things I don't want to see.

Spotify has been on the way to ruin for a while already. The UI is partly Tiktokified/Instagramified.

[–] waddle_dee@lemmy.world 2 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

So, I'm a bit of an enigma, so take my recommendation with a grain of salt. I use Tidal. It does the best, out of all my criteria.

    1. Friendly privacy policy. It's very straight forward, and from what my lawyer friend said, it's pretty solid.
    1. Hi def streaming. It's a must for me, as I have some nice cans and speakers I wanna listen through.
    1. Payout to artists. Although they don't pay as much as Qobuz, they pay a substantial amount relatively, and the aforementioned points make up for the rest.
    1. Ease of use. The app is really great and it's easy to use and I find that after curating my music for awhile, I get solid recommendations and the radio stations always hit well. Although, I do wish there was more variety in the stations. Sometimes, it plays the same tracks across stations.

All in all, I'm very happy with Tidal and I don't think I'm switching anytime soon.

[–] Eyekaytee@aussie.zone 1 points 12 hours ago

spotify has hi def now

[–] fdnomad@programming.dev 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I like streaming music, I dont need to own it, but I have been struggling to find a good music streaming service.

I used Spotify for years but the amount of garbage they keep adding made me cancel my subscription. The last straw was when "smart shuffle" kept automatically turning itself back on.

First I switched to YouTube Music but the user experience is honestly trash and I moved on pretty quickly. The separation between video and music service was ridiculously inconsistent.

I used Tidal for a few months and I appreciated the simple UI. However, the recommendations are insanely bad. Not once have I found a new, good track on the daily mix to add to my library, it was driving me crazy.

I started using Qobuz only a few weeks ago. The track radio is honestly pretty bad so far. I start the radio on a lofi track and start hearing video game ambience noises 5 tracks later. Literally bird sounds with whitenoise from an OST album. I havent tried the daily/weekly queue a lot yet, but I hope its decent because I dont know what to try next.

I wish Spotify hadn't entshittified, it had the best recommendations/radios by far but its just not usable for me anymore.

[–] froufox@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Funny that i switched from YT music to Spotify for a while and found its recommendations much worse. The app was cool and flashy though, especially on tv

[–] fdnomad@programming.dev 1 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

I think what helped my Spotify recommendations a lot was the option to "exclude from taste profile". I might listen to lofi for 12 h straight but I dont want any lofi recommendations at all, so that feature was nice.

Also I never pressed "like" on anything, I only ever disliked things in order to keep recommendations more open. It felt like Spotify understood the assignment while e.g. Tidal kept blasting me with a genre that I accidentally listened to one track of and kept "disliking" every single artists.

[–] VolumetricShitCompressor@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Tidal is great as far as streaming services go in general.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I hear people saying Tidal is unethical because of where its finding is coming from, and the ties its investors have.

Qobuz seems to be the shit as the next alternative.

[–] VolumetricShitCompressor@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Hm, I watched Fantanos streaming service tierlist and from what I've seen, they seem to be on the better side businesswise. And I do like the product much more than Spotify nowadays, but I'm one of those weird people that listen to whole albums and not to algotorial playlists to study/relax/makeyourtaxes to.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 2 points 18 hours ago

Fantanos streaming service tierlist

I'll have to check that out. 👍

I'm one of those weird people that listen to whole albums

Same, bro. Me too. ❤️🎶

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 1 day ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (2 children)

Bandcamp + Yar har fiddle dee dee + Jellyfin or Plex.

[–] abfarid@startrek.website 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

For music something like Navidrome is much better, IMO. But you could easily host it in addition to the former two, not instead.

Oh, and you can combine the subscription to Tidal with yar har by umm... permanently caching the songs offline by means of 3rd party tools. It might seem pointless at first glance, but having the music stored on your server ensures you'll keep having it, while you still can spontaneously explore new stuff on Tidal.

[–] yggstyle@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (4 children)

I'd steer away from Plex. Their devs have clearly been headed in the wrong direction. Enshittification inbound.

Obligatory I miss what.cd 🥲

[–] Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

RIP WCD

I’m on some new alternatives and they’re good, but WCD was unbeatable.

[–] yggstyle@lemmy.world 2 points 19 hours ago

I'm still of the mind that what got taken out because it was starting to support artists better than their labels / streaming platforms did. Losing it was a catastrophic blow to music preservation.

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[–] jagermo@feddit.org 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Deezer is my streamer of choice, nearly identical with artists, OK discovery. Premium includes high def and you can currently stream to multiple devices, like, say, play on sonos for the Kids and listen to yourself without one device stopping

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[–] cabbage@piefed.social 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I'm using Qobuz for music streaming. It's alright.

Last time I checked they pay artists more than the competition, they curate playlists and editorial content rather than pushing AI left and right, and my experience is generally good.

Minus points for lacking API and native Linux client. On desktop Linux the web app works well.

[–] CallMeAnAI@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Just don't use the feature. Not everything is screech worthy.

[–] sunstoned@lemmus.org 2 points 22 hours ago

That's a fair response to the original post. Made an edit to expound.

My problem with it is that I've never used Spotify messages, yet there's already a few threads on my account with dozens of "messages". My best guess is that the thread tracks unique links that I've sent to friends outside of the app and they've opened while logged in with their accounts. I don't like that.

[–] gruvn@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

I had Tidal, but sending music to my home Sonos devices was too much of a pain in my butt so I reverted back to Spotify.

[–] skisnow@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Winamp died because the company that acquired it tried to turn it into an everything app.

[–] DmMacniel@feddit.org 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Winamp died for our sins :(

[–] WilhelmStroker@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Misread that as winamp died for our skins.

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