Spotify CEO Daniel Ek sparked an online backlash after a social media post in which he said the cost of creating “content” is “close to zero”.
The boss of the streaming giant said in a post on X: "Today, with the cost of creating content being close to zero, people can share an incredible amount of content. This has sparked my curiosity about the concept of long shelf life versus short shelf life.
"While much of what we see and hear quickly becomes obsolete, there are timeless ideas or even pieces of music that can remain relevant for decades or even centuries.
“Also, what are we creating now that will still be valued and discussed hundreds or thousands of years from today?”
Music fans and musicians were quick to call Ek out, with one user, composer Tim Prebble, saying: “Music will still be valued in a hundred years. Spotify won’t. It will only be remembered as a bad example of a parasitic tool for extracting value from other peoples music. (or “content” as some grifters like to call it).”
Musicians weighed in too, with Primal Scream bassist Simone Marie Butler saying: “Fuck off you out of touch billionaire.”
I literally just cancelled my membership with that shitty company yesterday! It sucks, I’ve used it daily for almost a decade, but I just can’t really deal with my money going to such publicly malicious and stupid executives any more. They can’t just not be arseholes for like two seconds.
Anyway, I need some alternative… Does anybody use anything else that they prefer? 👀🤞
I know I say this a lot but Bandcamp is very good for some usage patterns.
I buy about one album a month for $10. Over the past four years, I now have accumulated a pretty decent library of music that’s mine to keep forever.
They do recommendations and articles that are (or feel like they are) written by real people.
Renting music kind of sucks.
I like what Bandcamp does, but I don’t necessarily want to have to download every song/album I buy off there and store it on my phone, or open the app and manually select a song or album one at a time to listen to.
I wish there was a way to build playlists, or even a full featured streaming service similar to what Spotify offers that would pay artists a respectable cut for streaming but not necessarily purchasing albums.
It would be nice to have that option but I suppose there’s probably arguments against it, I’m not really that familiar with all the pros and cons from the artists’ perspective. Even just a song radio type option like Spotify has would be great, because I do find a fair bit of new music that way.
Also, in case people aren’t aware, Spotify was sold to Epic games a few years ago, and they sold it on to a music licensing company who then laid off 16% of Bandcamp’s employees. So I’m not sure how much longer it’s going to be a good place for indie musicians.I guess we’ll see though.
They do let you make a playlist now, but only in the app. I imagine it’s something they were working on that didn’t get finished because of the layoffs. I’m real nervous that their new owners are going to shit it all up.
They do have like radio programs, and I think you can have it just play stuff from the music feed. I’m a little more album focused and intentional (ie: I want to listen to X, never a shuffle) so I haven’t needed much more than what they have.
Oh, that’s cool then. I’ll have to go back and take a look as I hardly use the app.
I guess if the new company fucks it up (which lets face it, is a given) at least you get to keep the music you’ve already bought which is more than you can say for Spotify.
If you are on any level tech savvy, you cam self-host your library on an app on your computer and use a client like symphoniam to play it.
It’s not hard to find a client that let’s you do all the same things as Spotify
I just gave Bandcamp a look and was able to find some stuff that I wasn’t able to find anywhere else and got a chance to support the artist so that was pretty cool thanks.
Bandcamp ftw. Love the platform. And I can get my music in flac!
Even though I don’t buy that many bandcamp albums, I do feel better about giving some obscure artist 10+ USD instead of pennies being spread amongst 1000s of artists (and much of that being sucked up by Spotify et al and major record companies).
What, the whole Joe Rogan bullshit didn’t tip you over but this did?
Tidal if you want to pay. YouTube Music with Revanced if you don’t.
I absolutely cancelled after that Joe Rogan drama. I was already questioning why I needed Spotify. And seeing my subscription money go there, I bounced.
Now I’m watching more boneheaded moves and shaking my head.
Tidal turned me off by pushing that snake oil MQA format for years, although I believe they have been moving away from it in recent years.
I’ve never heard of that format, that’s hilarious.
Laugh quietly please. I still have a Meridian DAC that transcodes MQA. Among the gullible audiophile set there are tens of us. FML.
No, this didn’t. I cancelled yesterday, after reading about them just bricking one of their peripherals without offering refunds until the legal system threatened them. It’s just a straw that broke the camel’s back situation, rather than one big thing - the Rogan situation certainly contributed, though.
Tidal sounds like a good idea, thank you!
Torrent if you don’t lawl. Flac forever.
Also I know lemmy is DAE HATE APPLE but Apple Music is the shit, they have ultra high quality lossless for the base price and a gigantic selection. They don’t pay artists WELL, but they’re near the highest paying per stream. (I think tidal might actually be the highest)
Apple Music worked well for me, but then it was worth the money as part of Apple One. If you’re not on iOS, you won’t have much use for Arcade or icloud storage though.
Whether Apple Music alone is worth it is up to OP though. IMO it is, but I now have YouTube Music instead, gets me access to a lot of music Spotify and Apple Music don’t have.
Interesting! I have an iPhone but I don’t use iCloud for anything because I don’t want my nudes online, and I don’t play games on my phone so I don’t have any use for Apple one hahaha
I’ve only failed to find one artist on Apple Music so far (DZK, an edgy YTMND/SA rapper from the mid-2000s) so I just torrented his music.
Fuck apple. A far worse company than Spotify
so brave
Not as brave as defending one of the world’s largest companies!
Just switched from Spotify to Tidal about 3 weeks ago. Their library is huge (even some tiny band project I once met at a festival in a german village back in 2018). They compensate the artist way better than Spotify and you can choose between different qualities up to 24 bit 192 kHz.
Prices are the same as Spotify.
Edit: If you have a paid subscription you can also import playlists from Spotify (or other common services)
Apple Music - great audio quality, pay artists better than spotify.
Brave man recommending anything Apple around these parts.
Apple Music is great.
Apple Music fucking slaps, after getting some fancy headphones their Spatial Audio is insane. It’s a novelty, sure, but damn if it isn’t fucking dope in some songs.
Apple Music also has music videos and their sound quality is high res. I used Tidal for a while but switched to Apple Music years ago and wouldn’t go back.
It’s nowhere near a full replacement to Spotify, but something that eased my switchover was Listenbrainz for open source music recommendations. It’s not as good as Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlists (yet!), but the greater transparency is worth it imo. I have the app from fdroid and it tracks what songs I’m listening to (especially useful if you connect it to a streaming app) and gives recommendations based on that.
I really like Deezer personally.
Deezer nuts!
Deezer seems like the most expensive compared to Spotify and Tidal, and pays artists the least according to this: https://producerhive.com/music-marketing-tips/streaming-royalties-breakdown/
Just curious what’s the added benefit?
I wasn’t aware of that to be honest I knew they were all pretty low but I didn’t know Deezer was the lowest.
I just like their app. Going to have to look into tidal I guess, although considering I haven’t really changed my music taste for a while, I might consider band camp at this point.
Actually you know what I’ve talked to myself into it. I’m just going to download my music with Bandcamp and use syncthing to have it wherever I need it. Thanks for the inspiration stranger
No worries! I’m looking to move away from Spotify and so comparing was on my radar :). Think Tidal family with playlist import might keep the moaning from the rest of the clan down. But will check out bandcamp too.
You got me!
YouTube music has actually been pretty great, although I hear some people have issues with it’s algorithm. I got grandfathered in back when Google Music shut down and I honestly like it more than the old GM app at this point. Plus, you get YouTube Premium for free with it.
Thanks for the suggestion! I remember GM back in the day, had loads of stuff on there :o I ended up going with Tidal for now, mostly because I also just can’t stand YouTube and don’t wanna give em money 😂
I’ve been using a revanced version of YouTube music that works pretty damn well