You’re literally subsidizing the behavior you dislike.
2. I collaborate on a small number of shared playlists with others who I won’t persuade to move.
Nonetheless I agree with you, I probably should. Until the next platform I choose pulls the same shit and I’m back to square one.
At this point I’m more likely to revert to buying/pirating music and self-hosting than give any more energy to another streaming service.
Spotube might be the answer if you don’t have an iPhone.
Using it on Windows and the client is good enough.
The problem with a music-only Spotify subscription is that it's a pretty undifferentiated product with little control over the forces around it. Anyone else can sell what they're selling: Apple, Google, Amazon, Tidal.
Spotify is a tiny company compared to most of those and doesn't control any of the platforms it uses: iPhone, Android, Alexa. While Europe's Digital Markets Act might make it harder for a company to kick Spotify off their platform, that's hardly worldwide. While the DMA might mean in-app payments with lower fees, it's looking like platforms will still be getting something.
Spotify doesn't own the music content that it's streaming. It's getting that from labels and artists.
Not to denigrate Spotify's software or user experience too much, but to an extent they're just a middleman between you and the music you want to hear. I'm sure people will reply about how they prefer the Spotify experience to other services and I don't want to dismiss that, but it's certainly less differentiated when everyone has the same content.
Now with non-music content, Spotify has differentiation. Even if the deal isn't 100% exclusive (since video is going on YouTube), it might still lock out Apple and Amazon. It might also restrict the ability for Google/YouTube to use it in a non-video format. Now there's more differentiation. There's stuff you can (mostly) only get from Spotify.
Even if platforms aren't doing dirty things to harm Spotify, there is often value in being the default in an ecosystem. If you don't have a streaming service, Alexa devices will suggest Amazon Music and you can sign up with no friction at all. That's different from signing up for Spotify and then linking it to my Alexa account. Apple Music is installed by default on iPhones. Spotify has a significant first-mover advantage, but companies that control important platforms and have deep pockets are coming after them. Offering something you can't get from the competition gives Spotify a way to keep subscribers and gain new subscribers instead of being an undifferentiated middleman between you and your music.
Kagi search has user setting that let you block domains. It would be pretty great if a music subscription let you have a master filter.
Never show me:
Podcasts
Mega church music
Sleep sounds
Sound effects
Also, I’d like a button which allowed my kid’s music to be erased from any algorithm that helps chose me music.
Preach.
My “Replay 2020” music is the last yearly replay that’s any good. Because I had my first child in 2021 and everything after that is lullaby music. My “For you” and personal radio station are now saturated with the music I play for my kids, and it’s completely destroying my music discovery. Apple Music really needs to fix this.
Set up an Apple Music account and then one for the child. However car rides still contaminate my music as my phone is the one plugged in, and I’m left back where I started.
It badly needs some sort of ‘exclude this artist, always’ option.
For me this would be indistinguishable from a ‘no Taylor Swift’ option.
No company owes anybody being a company of a specific sort.
And it's a nigh impossible battle to argue in favor of an order of magnitude less profitable business model if there are more profitable alternatives.
One reason I always said Apple's lock on the App Store was a few down quarters from being seriously abused to the detriment of users.
> Corporations run on a form of code – financial regulation and accounting practices – and the modern version of this code literally prohibits corporations from treating human beings with empathy. The principle of fiduciary duty to investors means that where there is a chance to make an investor richer while making a worker or customer miserable, management is obliged to side with the investor, so long as the misery doesn’t backfire so much that it harms the investor’s quarterly return.
Source https://locusmag.com/2015/07/cory-doctorow-skynet-ascendant/
I can point to examples that validate my point.
1. Facebook: https://apnews.com/article/facebook-whistleblower-frances-ha...
2. Apple: https://www.ifixit.com/News/82493/we-are-retroactively-dropp...
3. Youtube: adding more and more advertisements to each video even after they became profitable
4. Purdue Pharma and Pharma in general: The opioid crisis in the US
5. Volkswagen: Dieselgate
I can list many more, but I think you see a pattern.
I love podcasts. I love Spotify. I do not want them in the same UI. It's like finding email notifications or Google Docs content in among my songs.
I’d be willing to pay slightly more than I pay for my subscription with everything, if they removed the other stuff from the UI entirely, guaranteed that none of my money would go towards podcasts or audiobooks or whatever, and that every extra penny went to the musicians I listen to not more profit for Spotify.
Yes, Spotify is worth less to me when it includes anything other than music.