this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2025
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DeGoogle Yourself

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[–] Hadowenkiroast@piefed.social 38 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (3 children)

i decided to self host my library in as high of a res I could using Navidrome/subsonic.

I had a FiiO X3 anyway so i already had a FLAC capable player.

in the end, even if i know it's not for everyone. selfhosting is the only way to never lose what u love. so many of my lesser known tracks are just gone on spotify.

[–] OminousOrange@lemmy.ca 13 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Never lose as long as you have a good backup strategy.

[–] Hadowenkiroast@piefed.social 9 points 3 weeks ago

Very True, that is one of the few things people don't realize enough when starting selfhosting. Backups and documenting what you did.

I have a raid NAS keeping my data in-house which has an encrypted backup in the cloud (Infomaniak kdrive) and my FiiO X3 SD card which is an additional portable backup. So on that front, I don't worry too much.

[–] Outwit1294@lemmy.today 5 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I did this but I am not able to find new content.

[–] Hadowenkiroast@piefed.social 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

That is indeed quite a gap and nothing that fills the "discover weekly/release radarr" that spotify gives you once you use it for a while, I tend to go to tons of music events and I pick up music here and there.

Browsing what's popular/trending on beatport also helps a lot in adding fun tracks you wouldn't know from the radio.

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[–] mctoasterson@reddthat.com 38 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

This graphic seems to put Spotify in a "less shit" category than the other big players based on national origin or something.

From a quality and fairness perspective Spotify is just as bad. A large list of credible musicians and content creators have detailed the poor compensation, shift towards fake artists and AI filler tracks, and other moves Spotify has made that harm the artists and provide a worse listener experience.

If you want to fairly compensate artists, you'd be better off pirating 100% of your streams using alternate frontends for YT music, then making a list of your top 10-20 artists and buying an album or T-shirt from each of their official websites. They will make a lot better margin on that and its better for their career than any amount of streams you can give as one individual. (Also go to shows when available locally)

[–] rainha_da_sucata@slrpnk.net 6 points 3 weeks ago

I've been considering this and although I'm not one to pirate anything (my skills for this stayed in 1999) I've been buying CDs out of thrift stores and ripping them :)

[–] gila@lemmy.zip 5 points 3 weeks ago

Some of the categories for this infographic are arbitrary within the context of the music streaming market. Spotify is literally a more "incumbent" "monopoly" than the "big tech incumbents" if you only consider the segment of those companies' operations related to music streaming. Spotify is probably the worst choice of all, both using the ethos provided by the infographic and by other metrics too. Tech companies with 150B capitalisation are big tech regardless of how much bigger others are.

[–] GargleBlaster@lemmy.world 22 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

I switched from Spotify to tidal then deezer and finally landed on qobuz. While the app still has some problems and the music selection is not as massive as on Spotify (but mainly in super niche content), the higher artist pay and amazing soundquality are definitely worth it

[–] baggachipz@sh.itjust.works 15 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Spotify to tidal then deezer and finally landed on qobuz

Steps out of Time Machine from 15 years ago

WTF

[–] Bubs@lemm.ee 7 points 3 weeks ago

Wipur is the next big deal, but Boodle is likely to replace it. Slove is already dying, but iMPUR and Doofz look promising as replacements.

[–] 2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 3 weeks ago

Poob has it for you.

[–] psychadlligoat@piefed.social 5 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Deezer is from 2007, someone from 15 years ago could easily have heard of it

tidal is from 2014, so not quite

Qobuz is actually new, 2023

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[–] Tenderizer78@lemmy.ml 5 points 3 weeks ago

I really wish Qobuz would let me bookmark individual songs in my browser. That's the real sticking point for me (I use it).

If something's not on Qobuz I can just listen on Soundcloud.

[–] bent@feddit.dk 3 points 3 weeks ago

I really want to like Qobuz, but it's hard when there's a bug that starts playing music randomly after I pause the music for any reason, including playing sound from another app, and I have to kill the app (Android) for it to not start randomly playing again. (It's the "There's a problem playing the current track"-bug.)

I still use it alongside Bandcamp, but it's hard to love Qobuz for now.

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[–] ReluctantZen@feddit.nl 20 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (3 children)

Qobuz also does purchaseable music, not just streaming.

[–] friend_of_satan@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (3 children)

Same with Apple Music.

Edit: this is slightly misleading. When I used "Apple Music" in this sense, it included the "iTunes Store", which most people do not realize is a separate store where you can buy individual songs or albums. Both Apple Music and iTunes Store purchases show up in the same iTunes library.

[–] jnod4@lemmy.ca 5 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Yeah until they remove the albums and you don't keep them anymore afaik

[–] friend_of_satan@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

You are complaining about something that is not specific to Apple Music. It can happen, and it sucks, but Apple is no different from any other online music purchasing store in this regard.

iTunes Store purchases are free from DRM and can be backed up just like any other libre digital purchases.

All songs offered by the iTunes Store come without Digital Rights Management (DRM) protection. These DRM-free songs, called iTunes Plus, have no usage restrictions and feature high-quality, 256 kbps AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) encoding.

https://support.apple.com/guide/music/intro-to-the-itunes-store-mus3e2346c2/mac

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[–] thesmokingman@programming.dev 18 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Tidal is owned by Block, the owners of Square, which is the biggest POS vendor in the US. If that’s not big tech I don’t know what is.

[–] nfreak@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 weeks ago

Part of the reason I just shifted to a fully self-hosted setup.

Left Spotify because of all the bullshit they pull, tried out Tidal because of the higher quality and higher artist pay, but even if it is a substantially better platform, its ownership is questionable to say the least.

I dusted off bandcamp and learned to use slskd to build a full local high quality library powered by a Navidrome instance.

[–] SapphironZA@sh.itjust.works 16 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I tend to wear a special hat that allows me to consume music in any format or device I like.

and then go donate to, or purchase music directly from the artists that I like.

[–] pirat@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

yar har har.

[–] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 14 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I've been happy with Bandcamp. They got sold recently so their future is uncertain, but I downloaded all the music I bought.

They don't really have an algorithm, but you can see who else purchased something, and they do blog posts about like "what's new in [genre]" that's worth reading. So far as I can tell it's written by real people.

[–] ech@lemm.ee 13 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

They also have regular "Bandcamp Fridays", where they forego their 25% and give musicians 100% of proceeds for the day. It's a good chance to directly support small artists.

[–] Aqarius@lemmy.world 3 points 3 weeks ago

Yeah, from the conversations I've had, they're kind of the best of a bad bunch, all things considered.

[–] ChaoticEntropy@feddit.uk 12 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Naspers is a South African multinational internet, technology and multimedia holding company headquartered in Cape Town... did you mean Napster...? Did you generate this with AI or something?

Why would the largest music streaming service in the world be in the "other" category and not the "Big Tech Incumbents".

[–] stellargmite@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeh and the blurb for splotifry reads like an ad, with not a negative word to say about this exploitative monster.

[–] ChaoticEntropy@feddit.uk 6 points 3 weeks ago

I mean, the "To Note" section includes information about their worse practices. The whole infographic is such a nonsense mishmash.

[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 11 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

A glance at this makes me happy to just keep playing my mp3s.

[–] unknown1234_5@kbin.earth 10 points 3 weeks ago

I'm trying to get most of what I like on CD and then host a jellyfin server

[–] kalistia@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] RustedSnail@europe.pub 5 points 3 weeks ago

I tried them for a bit and really wanted to like them but their "modern" metal catalog, playlists, and discover-ability was so bad I had to begrudgingly go back to tidal.

[–] mortalglowworm@reddthat.com 4 points 3 weeks ago

There are also Faircamp and Mirlo, if you are looking for even fairer and progressive alternatives.

[–] DieserTypMatthias@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 weeks ago

I just use OuterTune for YT Music. It works and it is less sus than ReVanced YT Music

[–] mub@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Reality check here. If morals or personal philosophy means the most to you, then self hosting is really the only honest choice, assuming you then buy merch from artists. If features and library size are most important then you probably need Spotify. All the other worthwhile options might come with a good USP but they're usually flawed in comparison to Spotify.

Screw AI music, but it is on every platform. Spotify is just a victim of its success in this regard.

Edit: not a fanboi btw, just a dad with a family who likes to use Spotify. I have to pay for YT premium as well so the kids don't get ADs on their stupid iPhones. If the YT music app wasn't so shit I'd dump Spotify and make everyone switch, proving my point.

[–] DaedalousIlios@pawb.social 4 points 2 weeks ago

Music artists absolutely fucking hate music streaming services! It's too big to not participate, and in a lot of cases, their record label won't let them not do so. But the pay is absolute shit! If you care about tbe artist behind the music, buy their music. If you don't want to have all your music stored on device because it takes too much room, there are self-host options.

Going solely with streaming is actively screwing artists over, especially in the case of Spotify, which pays out to the tune (pun intended) of 0.0001¢ per stream. Even an artist as well known as Weird Al barely makes enough to buy a sandwich from what Spotify pays! Other platforms are better, but not by much. I don't say this to guilt trip; many big names make good money from record deals and will be just fine, while most of us don't make much. Indie artists are the real losers here.

That said, music had gotten cheap! Most of your favorite indie artists will sell FLAC versions of their albums for $10 an album, or $1 a song on Bandcamp, and prices are between $10-20 for major artists on platforms like Qobuz. It might take time to build your library back up, but the average person can make a huge difference here by taking the money you would spend on Spotify or any other platform, and buying your music directly. You'd be paying the artist more than they'd get from you streaming nothing but their album every day all year, eventually you'll be paying less in the long run by not being subbed to a greedy music platform, and you'll get better quality!

[–] Squibbles@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Is there a higher res version of this image? It's too blurry/small for me to read

[–] lemmyknow@lemmy.today 3 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

No Qobuz on Linux afaik :(

I'd otherwise consider the switch

Though being part of a family plan, I'd either have to pay for it myself – an added cost to expenses – or somehow get whole family to move over.

I wonder also how they be with people living separately

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[–] Trail@lemmy.world 3 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Anything that can work with Android Auto?

[–] OminousOrange@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 weeks ago

Tidal does. Haven't tried others.

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[–] Tenderizer78@lemmy.ml 3 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Is Spotify EU? They're headquartered in Sweden, but they're listed on the New York Stock Exchange, but their largest shareholders are Swedish and British.

Also, Soundcloud probably warrants more information. In no universe would it be someone's primary option but if someone's looking for a specific song that's not in the (limited) Qobuz library then it's a decent fallback.

[–] IDew@lemm.ee 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm actually one of the rare only SoundCloud users.. The way I like to discover music can only be done on SoundCloud. I've been with them for 9 years now

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[–] Psythik@lemm.ee 3 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

Which one has the biggest selection and highest quality audio, ad-free for $0/mo?

I use YouTube Music ReVanced, and while the audio quality isn't the highest (because it's YouTube), you can't beat the song selection. Especially when it's free and ad-free.

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[–] pewpew@feddit.it 3 points 3 weeks ago

Can't ungoogle myself this time. YT music has probably the best catalog of all and it's easily moddable

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