Can't even seek through songs.
this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2023
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Spotify kind of sucks. I've been using Bandcamp for years (though they sold to epic and then got sold to some vultures, so they might be doomed)
If I buy one album a month for a year, that's about the same as a subscription except I get to keep what I bought. And after a few years I have a big library and don't need to buy as much. And the musicians get a bigger cut.
If you're listening to stuff that's not on Bandcamp I don't know what to tell you. Probably buy it from elsewhere, or if it's old just pirate it because it should be public domain anyway.
This is your rationale and that is ok for you. Ownership is important to you. That is ok. But people who make the point you are making never understand the point those of us who like Spotify are making.
We do not care that we don't own anything after paying. I am not paying to own it. Never felt like I was, never felt like I needed to. In fact, it's almost a perk that I don't because then I am not sitting amidst towers of CDs (something that was definitely possible if I had continued my pre-spotify trajectory). Anyway, I pay for access. No more, no less. I pay for access to Spotify's library, which is many orders of magnitude larger than anything I could ever hope to amass myself, even if I was pirating shit.
I want to listen to whatever I want, whenever I want, instantly. I don't want to go pirate it, I don't want to go find it at a store, if someone suggests me a song or album or artist I want to go listen to it right now. Spotify enables that. I have discovered so much music I would absolutely never have tried without Spotify.
And again, I am 100% comfortable paying for access to something not owned by me. I'm a member at our local zoo. I don't expect to own the animals, I pay to just to get in. I'm a member at our museum. I don't feel like I should own the artifacts, I pay for the privilege of seeing them. I am a member at a community pool. I don't own the water, I pay to get in, and have someone else handle all the hassle of maintaining that pool.
Spotify is the exact same for me.
Thanks for a well written reply. I'm glad that you have a model that works for you. I'm bummed that I don't think Spotify really does right by the artists (and other issues with them). I guess in your analogy that would be a zoo mistreating the animals? Not the best metaphor I'll have to think more on how to work that.
I also really want more people to consider other options. A lot of people I don't think really consider that they could buy instead of rent. I'm confident there are many people who listen to like five albums and are paying Spotify for that every month.
One thing I feel like people keep forgetting is that artists weren’t making much money off CD sales or radio plays anyway. People tend to single out Spotify as a unique problem in the industry, but things weren’t necessarily better before. Artists have always made most of their money from ticket and merch sales. It was true then and it’s true today. And it’s also still possible to use Spotify and also still pay to go to concerts and buy merch.
Fully agree with you on artists not getting their fair share, and I would argue that the issue is sadly endemic across the entire music industry and was that way long before streaming services even existed. Spotify is merely the most visible representation of a long festering issue that spans generations.
I can only speak for myself but I do actually still buy CDs for bands I really like. I will also occasionally buy merch or go to shows. Some of these bands I very certainly would never have discovered without Spotify (or a service like it).
Ultimately I agree that I'd like people to understand their options. I think the biggest likely barrier is convenience. I have a NAS server, and a virtual host set up that runs a Linux server with Plex on it, and I have that open so I can use Plexamp to play live albums or any other stuff I own that isn't on Spotify. But like... That's a massive barrier to entry to simply create something close to the experience Spotify offers out of the box. And it's definitely not as polished. I do it because I'm a hobbyist, but most people aren't like that. So then if you want to buy music individually, you're stuck listening to actual physical CDs, or ripping them and loading them on your phone or mp3 player. Old school cool for sure, but new school convenience is sure hard to beat once you've had a taste.
Barrier to entry is definitely a thing.
For what it's worth, Bandcamp does let you stream your music from the cloud. You can also download stuff for offline play there. And most artists let you stream some number of times before asking for money. It's a pretty good model.
For me, another benefit of Spotify is the music recommendations. I have found a lot of music that I would never have found without letting Spotify just recommend things after an album or playlist has finished. Finding new music is something I have a hard time with on my own.
I feel like we have different definitions of "big library". I listen to dozens of new albums a year.
I'm sincerely curious what your music habits are like. With 36 albums a year, how much time are you spending with any of them? Do you ever go back to listen again?
I could easily listen to that in a month just while out walking. I'm not reviewing them for NME or anything.
Won't be new stuff either, I'll just reach down into the 90s or something and grab a band I haven't heard since I was a teenager.
With Spotify you can listen to thousands of new albums a year. Some of them I do listen to again, yes. Also you can listen to playlists (I do both.)
Okay, so this is a rough approximation, but let's say I listen to a whole album all the way through more or less once a week. Through that listen I'll like the songs that I enjoyed (sometimes even if I just thought it was interesting and I'm not sure how to feel yet, some of my favorite songs had to grow on me). For pretty much the whole rest of the week, during commutes or whenever I don't feel like giving the music the attention that I think a full album listen deserves, I'll just listen to my shuffled liked songs. Yes, I'll go back and listen to some of my favorite albums, but mostly just for those bands where the album experience is more than the sum of it's songs.
"Product X sucks because I use Product Y. If you like something else just steal it." Bout sums it up.
That's not how the "because" was in my original post. Spotify sucks because it's renting, they don't pay artists very much, they (as far as I recall) platform some awful people. Probably other reasons I can't think of right now, too. Other alternatives such as Bandcamp avoid or mitigate those problems
The point about piracy and public domain is somewhat related but you didn't really engage with that.
Sadly, Bandcamp has new owners that fired half the staff. Everybody's worried about them getting enshittified.
it's got to be old as fuck to be in the public domain so your argument there is largely invalid. Cry more that the people that make more in a year than you ever will are not making enough on the music you listen to.
Things should enter the public domain much quicker than they do now, rather than waiting for them to be "old as fuck". 14 years is long enough for copyright.
I don't really think small musicians are making more money than I do, and I'm not sure why you even brought that up.
That would mean you only get to listen to one new album each month. And getting to keep the album only matters if you eventually stop paying, but then you won’t get to add any new albums to your library until you pay for another one.
Spotify has provided me access to so much music, it’s incredible. I will never be able to go back to such a limited library after being able to experience the ability to listen to almost any music I want whenever I want.
Maybe this is more idiosyncratic for me, but I don't find that much new music I like every month.
Oh man, I sure do. It’s not just new releases, it’s also older music I haven’t heard before. There has been so much good music over the years that I’ll never be able to listen to it all before I die.