TLDR: I love sideloaded apps and they r a godsend
So I’ve been using sideloaded yt and Spotify and now I can NEVER go back. Makes me feel like a PEASANT if I do.
So a couple weeks ago I went on a 4 hour drive and sadly my sidestore time expired and I couldn’t renew due to ap ID it so I had to wait a week and by the time I would drive another 4 hours back. And let me tell you FREE SPOTIFY SUCKS ASS. I can’t go back or scrub through the songs, I can only do 6 skips per hour and replay COUNTS AS THE 6, luckily I use a vpn which blocked other company ads but SPOTIFY HAS THEIR OWN DAMN STUPID ADS EVERY 3 SONGS. And I couldn’t add songs to queue by swiping and I had to tap on the three dots and add to queue which I can’t do while on the highway. And of course I can’t play a specific song, I can’t even decide whether I want shuffle or not. And I didn’t even wanna try yt with no playing off the app or while the phone is off.
It’s as if getting into sideloading, piracy, and modding made me feel true online freedom and I can’t wait or imagine the feeling I’m going to have when I start self hosting. I’m definitely going to donate to these projects due to the improvement in my life they contributed to.
I quit Spotify and started using internet radio. Once a month, instead of giving $20 to a corporate overlord, I donate it to my favorite indy radio station playing fresh songs. Not the same pop BS over and over. Unique music from talented local artists around the world.
It does take a bit more time and experimentation to find some great stations.
Ill just leave this here. WWOZ New Orleans. Guardians of the Groove.
Thank you, we should probably have a community for this.
SomaFM is maybe the best thing to ever exist