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? 👀🤞
Today, 1000 times Tidal, they give more money to the artists and they lowered their prices while everyone else raised them.
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)
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 😂
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.
Apple Music - great audio quality, pay artists better than spotify.
Brave man recommending anything Apple around these parts.
I’ve been using a revanced version of YouTube music that works pretty damn well