Technology

Spotify was my penultimate subscription. Still have to bring my AWS Lightsail instances back in house. :(

Yeah, enshitification indeed. Was quite happy 4 years ago. Worth $10/mo. to get what I want and some new stuff occasionally thrown in. Suggested music tracked my tastes, easy UI, all that.

Then they upped it $1. Fine. Then I started getting all sort of bullshit when my playlist ran out. "Fuck was that?!"

Now that I cancelled the paid version, the ads are killing me. Look, I'm a GenXer, accustomed to ads for free TV and radio. I'm fine with that revenue model. But fuck me, just like modern radio, the ads became so thick as to be distracting. And of course I can't use it in the deep woods where my internet is sketchy.

I download all my playlists. FOSS I can use to upload and play that on my phone? Guess I'm back to pirating.

There's a reason why artists have to sell 50$ t-shirts at shows. Back in the days, the label would leech you dry, and now it's Spotify, on top of your label

Everyone always gave me shit for sticking with Pandora. It can basically do all the shit that Spotify can these days albeit a little different. You can even make your own playlists and listen offline if you have premium. It has a more limited library but it's barely noticeable except maybe once or twice a year I can't find a song I wanna listen to. It's simpler and cheaper than Spotify with most of the same features. My favorite part is that I can literally pick any song I want and it will just continue playing after it's over with similar songs. I've discovered so much music I would have never tried if it hadn't shown up. And so far it hasn't been overrun by AI slop like Spotify. Sure they pay artists less compared to competitors but at least they aren't just straight up trying to replace them.

I'm not saying Pandora is objectively better. I'm just saying Spotify is falling into the world of enshittification and there are many alternatives out there. You could even just buy music and support artists directly like we used to.

Devils advocate moment... If people keep listening (or sort of listening) and they are OK with music that seems to lack any soul, is it not just giving the audience what they want and deserve?

Devils concierge moment... What a bunch of shitbags.

The only people who make money on Spotify is Spotify. Support artists directly if you want them to continue to create.

Thats some pretty bad stuff: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3wLm5nlYrHkbd29ilMRq89?nd=1&dlsi=50e31b2329204ddd

its all the same song as the article states.

The last and only truth I needed to know about Spotify was it's 250 million dollar deal with Joe Rogan, who is antivax incel cancer, and that was it for me. No need to learn or know any more about them.

I mean they paid Joe Rogan $100 million dollars so they have already wrecked their reputation.

didn't they sue someone for doing this on his own? I guess they want to be the only ones doing it.

From the article:

"...journalist Liz Pelly has conducted an in-depth investigation, and published her findings in Harper’s—they are part of her forthcoming book Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist.

...

"Now she writes:

'What I uncovered was an elaborate internal program. Spotify, I discovered, not only has partnerships with a web of production companies, which, as one former employee put it, provide Spotify with “music we benefited from financially,” but also a team of employees working to seed these tracks on playlists across the platform. In doing so, they are effectively working to grow the percentage of total streams of music that is cheaper for the platform.'

In other words, Spotify has gone to war against musicians and record labels."