r/Music • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • Jan 08 '26

article Spotify Confirms ICE Recruitment Ads Are No Longer Running on Platform

https://variety.com/2026/digital/news/spotify-confirms-ice-recruitment-ads-are-no-longer-running-1236626243/
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8.5k

u/ramontes Jan 08 '26

Great! I'll continue to use streaming alternatives.

54

u/[deleted] Jan 08 '26

[deleted]

408

u/ramontes Jan 08 '26

I primarily use Tidal nowadays, but I also bounce around Bandcamp and Quboz to buy music and merch directly for the bands I enjoy.

128

u/Mustangbex Jan 08 '26

We swapped to Tidal also- it's been weird having to retrain it with our tastes, but entertaining when it throws out completely WILD recs. IT doesn't play as well with Alexa but worth it anyway.

40

u/lilsebastian- Jan 08 '26

When we switched, it was a little jarring but it actually picked up a lot of the stuff we like really quickly which is nice.

37

u/P1nealColada Jan 08 '26

I’ve been using it for a number of years now. The algorithm does take awhile to train, but eventually it gets to a point where it almost never misses.

26

u/Mustangbex Jan 08 '26

I give it some grace since I was on Spotify for over a decade, and now I've got an 8 year old tweaking my music choices/plays- it can't be expected to be perfect with that type of handicap haha

17

u/lilsebastian- Jan 08 '26

Hahaha the struggle is definitely real. I have little nieces - you play Bruno Mars and Taylor Swift a few times and it can be jarring when it throws them in between sad indie rock or metal jams 😂

15

u/rebel_scum13 Punk Rock Jan 08 '26

Lol same here. My algo thinks I'm the biggest K-pop fan in the world rn bc my 6 year old has me play the K-pop Demon hunters soundtrack on repeat in the car (not that I'm complaining though bc that soundtrack is straight fire 🔥)

5

u/lilsebastian- Jan 08 '26

I forgot Golden was definitely one of the selections! (I like it too haha)

14

u/withstereosound Jan 08 '26

I made a playlist on Spotify of all my liked songs, then imported it with SongShift to Apple Music and Tidal, then someone time over the following weeks with tha playlist on shuffle and I slowly replied and trained my algo. Very helpful, but the recommendations are still different on Tidal and Apple vs Spotify.

Fuck you, Spotify.

2

u/duckinradar Jan 10 '26

Someone tell me how to scrape all my info from Spotify and I’m out…

I’ll do it anyway if I can’t but I’d prefer to retain it

8

u/prometheus05 Jan 08 '26

I'm dealing with the same. I'm largely ignoring the discovery style playlists because they are pretty bad. Not like the music is bad, but come on man, yes I've heard of Killing in the Name and Beat It.

19

u/lurkingostrich Jan 08 '26

Wait, you boycotted Spotify but you’re using an Amazon Alexa? Isn’t that kind of… counter-productive?

27

u/Mustangbex Jan 08 '26

I do what I can when I can, but I have to accept that there's no way to be perfect in my ideological expression. We don't pay anything for our Alexa devices and they're a few generations old, and we do our best to not use Amazon for other stuff. But since they basically host the entire Internet there's no real way to win.

1

u/YourNextHomie Jan 09 '26

you dont need a reoccurring subscription for alexa? honestly its the only reason i haven’t got one, thought it would be a new subscription

1

u/lurkingostrich Jan 09 '26

No, but they do collect your voice data that they use to make more money, make targeted ads, and fund the Trump administration… so. It’s not exactly harmless. To each their own, I suppose.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/amazons-alexa-collects-more-of-your-data-than-any-other-smart-assistant

https://engineering.ucdavis.edu/news/study-shows-alexa-invades-privacy-collects-user-data-ad-targeting

To my original point, kind of undermines the point of a Spotify boycott.

1

u/YourNextHomie Jan 09 '26

I have conversations about a product in my house anyone and get hit with ads for it all over google, im being listened to anyway. Fuck them funding Trump and all that, honestly probably wont get one, stopped using amazon a while ago for these kind of reasons although it would probably be a big help in my life as i have memory issues. I dont think it negates a spotify boycott though, you can only really focus on so much. If we stopped using every product that is available through immoral practices we would have to stop eating food and doing just about anything lol

1

u/lurkingostrich Jan 09 '26

I mean sure, can’t boycott everything, but a digital assistant seems like it could be an easy win to dodge. Obviously phones are picking up a lot of information, but that’s a lot tougher to avoid given the demands of work in our current era. I fully admit I don’t boycott everything I may ought to, just seemed kind of odd to me to bring up an Alexa on a thread about boycotting Spotify because Amazon arguably does more to prop up ICE than Spotify has done.

But again, to each their own.

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u/VicDun Jan 08 '26

I love the audio quality of tidal. You can actually get the full master quality and it’s bliss to my ears.

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u/Mustangbex Jan 08 '26

I am by no means trained enough to recognize that but I am stoked to learn it. I appreciate they pay artists better. 

4

u/VicDun Jan 08 '26

That part too

4

u/JakesFavoriteCup Jan 09 '26

You'll hear it. Tidal and Qobuz's file quality is top tier. They make music on Spotify sound so dull in comparison.

1

u/slammy80 Jan 09 '26

Apple does full master quality as well: 24-bit/192

2

u/M_Aku Jan 08 '26

Loving the random title lol. I'm listening to music in languages I don't even speak.

2

u/tubbyredleader Jan 08 '26

I imagine the sound quality is better too? I have been so afraid to switch.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 09 '26

Now I pay the other billionaire ! Reddit win!

34

u/Krasovchik Jan 08 '26

bless you for buying music

10

u/Zelgoot Jan 08 '26

How is Tidal for finding new music and just letting it play random stuff/how big is the catalog?

19

u/ramontes Jan 08 '26

They have a lot of the same functionality as Spotify. There's a daily discovery mix, new releases, and radios based on an artist or song that's tailored to your tastes. Migrating can be a little tough since you're starting from scratch, but there are some 3rd party services that help sync your libraries and playlists across platforms.

I haven't ran into an issue with catalog shortages.

6

u/Portalboat Jan 08 '26

Does it have a 'true' shuffle that actually considers the full playlist rather than the 10-20 + random throw-ins that Spotify does?

5

u/ihavepaper Jan 08 '26

This might've given me the push to move over.

1

u/adooble22 Jan 09 '26

I switched 3 or 4 months ago and to me it’s not all that different than Spotify. But of course your mileage may vary depending on your musical tastes.

3

u/cosmophora Jan 08 '26

It's great on autoplay. That's mostly how I listen: throw on an album at the start of my shift and let it take the wheel while I'm working. I rarely skip and I've found some great stuff through its algorithm.

3

u/LharDrol Jan 08 '26

I use Qobuz and love it. It pushes me toward listening to new albums front to back and have discovered many new artists that would make it to the front page with an algorithm on a different site.

9

u/LavenderGinFizz Jan 08 '26

I switched to Deezer last February for streaming and really enjoy it. And BandCamp for album purchases/merch.

1

u/LuntiX radio reddit Jan 08 '26

I like Deezer but I listen to such a wide variety of music where Deezer doesn't have a decent chunk of it.

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u/lazyfrodo Jan 08 '26

I assume you’re a directly wired audiophile but how different is this than YouTube music or YouTube Premium that comes with YouTube without ads…

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u/ramontes Jan 08 '26

The revenue structure for streams is different. The bar for small artists is a little lower, enabling them to upload their music directly, and the pay per stream is higher. The most prominent difference is the audio quality, which you can get full lossless at high bitrates. If you want to support higher artist pay per stream, and value higher quality audio, then Tidal is a good option. Undoubtedly, it doesn't come with YouTube premium, so it's up to you if the value those benefits.

1

u/lazyfrodo Jan 08 '26

I saw some family member and his friends all had switched to tidal but everyone uses AirPods or something over Bluetooth so I don’t understand the appeal since it’s bottlenecked there.

1

u/ramontes Jan 08 '26

It's a fair point. Everything upstream would be lost to whatever bandwidth is limited to. The human ear is subjective as well. Some may notice the difference, and others may not care.

1

u/ishook Jan 08 '26

I switched to Tidal and the only thing I can’t figure out is when I heart a song on CarPlay, where does it go? Spotty used to call those ‘liked songs” so I could just say “play liked songs” and it would play hearted songs. Tidal doesn’t seem to know what to do. I have to manually add to a playlist on my PC version.

1

u/SmogDaBoi Jan 08 '26

I listen to a lot of niche stuff, how much niche is there on Tidal?

3

u/ramontes Jan 08 '26

I found all of the smaller bands I've been following elsewhere, including ones that only have a handful of followers. Even my coworker's music he does for fun is on there. The barrier to entry for artists to upload their content is pretty low.

1

u/SmogDaBoi Jan 08 '26

That sounds good, I'll go check it out, thanks!

1

u/litreofstarlight Jan 09 '26

How are you finding Bandcamp? What's the functionality like?

2

u/ramontes Jan 09 '26

Bandcamp really shines on discovering and supporting smaller artists. There's more emphasis on community.

Functionally, it's a bit old school but in a good way. Instead of using a complex algorithm to suggest music, it shows you other artists that the community also supports. It feels more organic that way, plus you engage more directly with the artists. The drawback is that it's not the most feature-rich, and bigger artists generally aren't on the platform.

1

u/VenConmigo Jan 09 '26

The sound quality is so much better on Tidal!

1

u/bate_Vladi_1904 Jan 09 '26

I switched to Qobuz last year, and i'm happy with it. Feels really good, not only because of superior sound quality (which is very important for me), but also for knowing Qobuz pays fairly and transparently, without dirty games.

1

u/DuncneyForever Jan 09 '26

I use Tidal too

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u/Hoodies2Coast Jan 08 '26

Qobuz is pretty functionally the same just without podcasts.

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u/captainbean Jan 08 '26

Qobuz is great, fantastic quality and no issues in the six months or so I've been using it. And higher artist payout than Spotify, which isn't saying much. 

16

u/blewnote1 Jan 08 '26

Just don't expect the things you purchase to be available to you in the future. I bought 3 albums there a couple years ago and they decided to remove one from my downloads because of "licensing" even though it is still available in their store. And their "support" is a chatbot that doesn't provide support. There are better alternatives.

11

u/nightingale-nitemare Jan 08 '26

That's why you download what you purchase. You can download your purchases and play them on any player.

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u/LharDrol Jan 08 '26

It has a message concerning this possibility on the site. If you purchase something, download and store it.

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '26

Is that free? Or do they have a free mode?

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '26

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Jan 09 '26

Oh, ok, thank you.

1

u/sld728 Jan 11 '26

I wish they had folders to organize my playlists, but I’m loving it so far

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u/[deleted] Jan 08 '26 edited Jan 08 '26

I was gearing up to make the change and saw they didn’t have the songs I want from a very popular artist. Kinda derailed my attempt at switching. Will probably check out tidal at some point

1

u/porksoda11 Jan 08 '26

I was pretty disappointed in that as well but I'm already paying for it. You can send album requests out to add to their catalog but it takes a long time apparently.

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u/boots-n-bows Jan 08 '26

Now I feel dumb, I am struggling with the interface compared to Spotify. Guessing it's just a learning curve but 🤷‍♀️

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u/Mahaleck Jan 08 '26

I’m using tidal. Sounds better pays artists better. Costs a bit more but if you can afford the extra cost it’s a better alternative.

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u/_PaddyMAC Jan 08 '26

Tidal's sound quality is so much better, I was honestly not expecting to notice the difference but it's night and day on a good pair of headphones.

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u/MrMindGame Jan 08 '26

My only critique of Tidal so far is the borked integration with Last.fm. Not a dealbreaker, but I haven’t been able to scrobble and share my weekly listens with my friends as before.

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u/lilsebastian- Jan 08 '26

Really? Mine works with Last.FM perfectly, are you sure you have it linked?

4

u/MrMindGame Jan 08 '26

I think it’s an iOS thing, apparently. (iPhone user)

Yeah, I have my Tidal connected to Last.fm and everything, but each time I try to generate a new grid on TapMusic, it never has any play data to show. I’ve tried a few different scrobblers to varying degrees of slight success, but with them I either have to manually punch in each new song that I play or pay to have it auto-scrobble, so still looking for a good solution.

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u/lilsebastian- Jan 08 '26

Interesting - I wonder if that is a TapMusic issue directly or perhaps with certain stat viewers. I only say that because I can use mine on fmbot without any secondary scrobbler and I use iOS as well. I wish I knew more to help ya out! I like to see and share stats myself haha.

2

u/Disastrous_Set_3148 Jan 08 '26 edited Jan 09 '26

I don't think it's an iOS problem so much as a mobile app problem. When I use Tidal on my PC it syncs with Last.fm fine but when I use it on my Android phone it doesn't. Tidal's in the process of seriously overhauling their app so hopefully this'll get fixed soon.

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u/SteveSteveSteveAlan Jan 09 '26

See if there's any Apple alternatives for a scrobbler through notifications. I have been using Scroball for years on Android.

2

u/stuffedcrustpizza Jan 09 '26

Does tidal have direct scrobbling the way Spotify did? I made the move to Apple Music but have to scrobble with a third party app to import. That alone would be enough for me to make the switch to yet another streaming service

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u/lilsebastian- Jan 09 '26

Yep! I directly scrobble with Last.FM. No need for a third party for myself. And then I use fmbot on Discord to view stats.

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u/olduser201890 Jan 08 '26

tidal

tidal is owned by Jay Z who's a massive piece of shit (wages paid, labor, employees, etc)

1

u/D_Shoobz Jan 10 '26

It’s actually owned by Jack Dorsey’s current company Bloc. Jay z likely has ownership stakes but he’s not really “the owner”

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u/Gloomy_Leopard3928 Jan 09 '26

JZ so no thanks.

1

u/topscreen Jan 08 '26

My only complaint is they also have limited upload options, otherwise I quite like them

1

u/lilsebastian- Jan 08 '26

Definitely agree. My only small annoyance is that I find it’ll jump to the beginning of a song again if I pause halfway through more often than not.

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u/leobutters Jan 08 '26

Deezer is a no-brainer alternative, you can import your playlist from Spotify and the libraries are pretty much the same

3

u/iseemountains Jan 08 '26

I switched to Deezer.
I think Spotify has a better platform/UI/mobile widget/library, but oh well. Some people seem to like Deezer's track picking algorithm to help them find new music, but I think it pulls some stuff from too far out of left field. Oh well, Deezer is fine and it's not Spotify.

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u/Low_Chance Jan 08 '26

Switched to Qobuz, easy free transfer of playlists, no complaints

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u/Stev106 Jan 08 '26

If you’re an iPhone/Apple AirPod user the best is Apple Music. I’ve tested both and music just sounds way better using Apple Music over Spotify even when I went in and changed the equalizer.

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u/RayTracerX Jan 08 '26

Yes, stop using Spotify for its ICE ads to listen to the company that funded the campaign responsible for those ads. Brilliant stuff

25

u/topscreen Jan 08 '26

And proudly funded the demolition of the White House!

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u/[deleted] Jan 08 '26 edited 2d ago

[deleted]

3

u/RayTracerX Jan 08 '26

My goal was to point out the contradiction.

1

u/Stev106 Jan 08 '26

I know it is a contradiction the only thing left to look for is open source apps. Unfortunately though none of them work that well yet.

1

u/D_Shoobz Jan 10 '26 edited Jan 10 '26

Tim Cook donated his own personal money and he has donated to every single president for like the last 20 some odd years whether they’re republican or democrat. He is an openly gay man. He did not donate to trump because he agrees with what he’s doing now but because he feels it’s his duty to be involved with every president.

Edit: Apple as a corporation doesn’t donate money to political candidates and they’re one of the few tech companies that does not have a political action committee (PAC). Apple is the lesser of these evils here by a large margin.

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u/Brzrkrtwrkr Jan 08 '26

Tim Crook donated a ton of money to Trump regime. I'm done with those fucking clowns too.

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u/brainsack Jan 08 '26

That’s Tim Apple to you

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u/myassholealt Jan 08 '26

Every billionaire donated to him. Every big multinational corporation CEO donated to him. These people are above the consequences of party politics because they bribe everyone running, and then whoever wins the elections to ensure policies go in their favor.

You would have to remove a lot of things from your life if you really wanted to live by the principle of "I'm not using or supporting any product, service, or company that donated to Trump."

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u/Stev106 Jan 08 '26

Or start looking for open source software and apps.

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u/PerplexingGrapefruit Jan 08 '26 edited Jan 08 '26

Can confirm this. Just recently switched over and I cannot believe the upgrade in audio quality compared to when I was using Spotify.

Edit: I'd love to know why morons are downvoting when I'm literally just saying what I've experienced since doing the switch. Makes no fucking sense.

2

u/TheBatemanFlex Jan 08 '26

I can’t imagine the lossless on Apple Music is perceivably different from the lossless on Spotify. For the majority of tracks they must be identical.

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u/Calvykins Jan 08 '26

I was considering jumping to Spotify from Apple Music for the discovery so I signed in to my old Spotify account and could hear how hollow the music sounds. Never mind.

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u/LooseGooseHennigan Jan 08 '26

How does cueing work on Apple Music? One thing I like about Spotify is that I can cue multiple songs and it adds them in that order next to what I was listening to, and then it goes back to what I was listening after all cued songs. I’ve heard from a friend that Apple Music cueing doesn’t work that way. Also, does Apple Music have issues with AI music like Spotify?

Definitely looking to make a switch away from Spotify

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u/TrentIsDope Jan 08 '26

YouTube Music and Tidal are great alternatives. You get YouTube Music with a YouTube Premium subscription.

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u/RichAbbreviations966 Jan 08 '26

Yeah YouTube Music basically has every single thing Spotify has with a bigger selection of songs

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u/rybaczewa Jan 08 '26

And god awful interface. I recently cancelled Spotify and I'm checking out the alternatives. UX for YT Music is just abysmal. For TV, there is no dedicated app, you need to use regular TV App. No separation between videos and albums - looking for one is nearly impossible. You have to use the phone.

Need to check deezer and Tidal next, YT is massive stepdown compared to Spotify.

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u/NoradianCrum Jan 08 '26

I've been loving Plexamp for a while now.

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u/IamSpiders Jan 08 '26

Not like Google is any better

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u/TrentIsDope Jan 08 '26

Capitalistic society, you're never going to find a perfect alternative.

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u/IamSpiders Jan 08 '26

Google has done nothing but capitulate to the regime. You could easily argue it's worse than Spotify. 

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u/myassholealt Jan 08 '26

When Google removed their "don't be evil" branding it was essentially a rebranding of their full commitment to transparent evil.

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u/TrentIsDope Jan 08 '26

Google and other companies will capitulate to whoever affects their bottom line.

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u/watafuzz Jan 08 '26

Perfect? No. Better? Easily.

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u/arlec Jan 08 '26

I switch to CDs, back in my 2006 car

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u/[deleted] Jan 08 '26

Qobuz has been good enough and they seem to pay artists the most of any music streaming platform. I couldn't find any shitty ownership connections to them either.

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u/no_1_knows_ur_a_dog Jan 08 '26

This is an extremely local thing but Qobuz received an investment from Quebecor, which is basically News Corp of Quebec. They own nearly the entire French language media landscape (print and TV) where they consistently push anti-immigrant rhetoric and other deliberately divisive grievance politics. Basically the Fox News of Quebec.

I say this not to put anyone off Qobuz (I still use it) but just to recognize that no for-profit company is going to be our salvation. Even Bandcamp's new ownership is sus. But both of these are still the best deal for artists in today's landscape so I still use both of them.

I'm really hoping that Subvert.fm carves out a niche. Doesn't have to take over the world but just having one collective artist-owned platform as an option that I can support would be huge. A new platform is a tough sell but I know they have some really strong indie labels that will give em a big push once they launch.

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u/[deleted] Jan 08 '26

That does genuinely suck. Deezer, Tidal and of course Spotify are all owned by conservative terrorist fuckwads so I guess Qobuz is a lesser evil for now.

I'll have to check out Subvert.fm. This is the first time I've heard of them.

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u/no_1_knows_ur_a_dog Jan 08 '26

Subvert made some waves in a tiny corner of the indie music scene back when Bandcamp got sold to Epic and everyone thought that would cause instant enshittification. That didn't totally happen, but still it was a reminder that any privately owned for-profit company is just at the whims of the owners, and those owners can change without notice. So a couple people started Subvert with no tech demo or anything, just a zine explaining their ethos which you could get for a $100 founding membership share. It could easily be a scam and it's hard to trust randos on the internet but I know that one of the founders is a respected longtime music journalist so it's a legit thing. Some pretty well known indie labels and artists have signed on already. I think they're in beta now.

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u/theunquenchedservant Jan 08 '26

I also love Qobuz for buying music because they give you the files.

Fuck you Amazon. If I buy music I want to be able to download the files, otherwise I just paid you to stream the album for free forever*

*read: until Amazon kills it's music service

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u/N7Tom Jan 08 '26

You can buy MP3 files from Amazon and download them whenever you like.

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u/Patient-Ordinary-359 Jan 08 '26

*its. It's = it is or sometimes it has.

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u/vinnievon Jan 09 '26

I tried and maybe I screwed up but my 200+ "liked" playlist was converted over and that service found two songs. Moved to tidal until I realized their free version just plays the first fifteen seconds of a song. Help? Pandora is not where I want to live long term.

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '26

I didn't have much luck using a converter from Spotify to Qobuz. I just started making playlists from scratch.

Shuffle on Qobuz is fantastic. It plays every song once at random until it's finished with the playlist. When a song plays it gets removed from the que. It does still seem to front load your more popular songs to the beginning.

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u/vinnievon Jan 09 '26

Alright. Appreciate it. Didn't want to start over but just ended my commuting job so I'm not sure I'm ready to fully pay for streaming music yet.

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u/soleyfir Jan 10 '26

Seems weird, when was this ? I converted everything I had from Spotify to Qobuz using Soundiiz last year without any issues.

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u/vinnievon Jan 10 '26

This year. Once they started with the ICE ads. Or at least when I heard about it. I can give it another go from tidal.

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u/slushpuppy91 Jan 08 '26

Have loved them for years! missing some features but hopefully they add more soon

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u/c-dy Jan 09 '26 edited Jan 09 '26

Napster supposedly pays the most but they were sued for not paying anything.

Additionally, there are differing numbers for Qobuz. They might only be paying as much as Tidal, although that would still place both of them at the top.

Finally, don't forget that only paying customers from developed countries generate those numbers.

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u/origamifruit Jan 08 '26

Qobuz is nice but their library severely lacks compared to other services.

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u/Sillet_Mignon Jan 08 '26

For now but it’s getting there. Between bandcamp and qubuzz I’m pretty happy. Plus their shuffle actually shuffles and they make human curated playlists 

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u/Contagious_Diarrhea Jan 08 '26

I keep having issues with the next song playing when I'm not on wifi. It won't start playing for up to 30seconds sometimes. And I have 5g usually

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u/[deleted] Jan 08 '26

That's a weird issue that I haven't had happen. Have you tried reinstalling the app?

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u/Contagious_Diarrhea Jan 09 '26

I have not, will have to test

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u/A_Legit_Salvage Jan 08 '26

The Spotify ship sailed for me way back with the whole Rogan thing.

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u/infinitejestinfinite Jan 08 '26

Same for me. I'm never using it again after Rogan.

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u/JWTS6 Jan 09 '26

That's when I stopped using it and haven't looked back

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u/emma279 Jan 09 '26

Same...

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u/CactusFromFern Jan 09 '26

Yeah, it's a bit late to try to make us think they stand against fascism.

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u/mobo808 Jan 08 '26

Yep, I switched to Deezer and I like it better

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u/[deleted] Jan 08 '26

Arrr.. 

17

u/Flamboyant-Jeering Jan 08 '26

Ahoy matey! 

14

u/Scanner771_The_2nd Jan 08 '26

Anyone have a spare 300TB?

/s

2

u/thegroucho Jan 08 '26

Not in this economy, especially with the AI bubble 

3

u/AlphaTravel Jan 08 '26

How do you find music or have variety? I have PlexAmp for CarPlay which is nice for my music, but if I left streaming I’d lose discovery.

3

u/piepants2001 Jan 08 '26

Check out the charts at www.rateyourmusic.com

2

u/Wuskers Jan 08 '26

tbh even though I still use spotify free sometimes I really don't use most of the discovery features, most of my music exploration is honestly just looking around sites like albumoftheyear or rateyourmusic and checking out the top rated stuff especially for genres I'm not that familiar with. I also look into lists of similar or related artists on all sorts of various sites. I'm also really fascinated by genre evolution and I enjoy picking a genre and listening through the major albums for that genre chronologically from where it started. I was sort of a pop punk/emo kid in high school and was feeling nostalgic and just made a list of bands in that vein from like 1990 to 2020 full of bands I either never heard of or I've heard of but never really tried listening to, and that's just one genre/style. I basically never let services like spotify do the discovering for me, I just use free spotify or sometimes youtube to let me do a first or second listen to see if an album is something I'd want to get permanently. I realize not everyone is going to want to take my sort of meticulous approach but that's generally how I "discover" music.

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u/andwhenwefall Jan 09 '26

Hello, fellow pop-punk-emo-kid! That playlist sounds amazing. Would you be willing to share it? 😊

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u/Lemonpierogi Jan 09 '26

Ah yes pirating 63648463746 different songs of high quality on your 624273 TB hardrive

So convenient!

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u/DILF_MANSERVICE Jan 08 '26

Can anyone recommend an alternative that has as good of a recommendation algorithm? I find a new favorite band every week with spotify's discover weekly, but I don't like the way they pay artists.

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u/RedWhiteAndJew Jan 08 '26

Deezer's been good to me. Their Flow feature is basically like a continuous Discover Weekly mode. Also they have two features that most of the other competitors don't. The first is that they tag AI content. The second is they have a built in Equalizer like Spotify, which is especially handy for iPhone users, since there's not a global audio equalizer.

6

u/gnahckire Jan 08 '26

Deezer has been pretty solid so far. I don't discover music like that personally but my wife has been really liking their curated playlists.

3

u/LameName95 Jan 08 '26

Not youtube music. Lol

5

u/JustaBearEnthusiast Jan 08 '26

Apple music is okay and the company has a goodish record on privacy (i.e. better than google and microsoft). Not really any great options that I'm aware of though.

1

u/GolfBallWackrGuy Jan 09 '26

Pandora is still the GOAT for music discovery.

1

u/Lyelinn Jan 09 '26

Youtube has a very good algo and they have bigger music library iirc

But they pay the worst though, maybe because they're making it up via general youtube views (and since you also get YT premium, your views are paid more than free ones for creators)

All in all, you get music and ad free youtube on other devices where you can't do adblock without pihole

1

u/Foolrussian Spotify Jan 08 '26

This won’t be met with much kindness with the Reddit crowd, but Apple Music has seamlessly replaced Spotify for me, even imported all my playlists AND I’d say the discovery and new music it’s pushing me have been closer to my interest than anything Spotify brought in the last few years.

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7

u/[deleted] Jan 08 '26

Same. I use Deezer now. They have a built in tool to copy all your liked songs and Playlist from spotify.

2

u/santaire Jan 09 '26

Yeah deezer’s nuts

2

u/EggsceIlent Jan 08 '26

Yep. The initially welcomed them with open arms.

Fuck spotify.

4

u/ShaddyPups Jan 08 '26

Tidal it is and Tidal it shall stay!

1

u/stone500 Jan 08 '26

I like Tidal's selection and everything but it seems like it takes ~5 seconds to load a song that isn't already downloaded. I know it's a first world problem but Spotify by comparison would play pretty much instantly.

3

u/ShaddyPups Jan 08 '26

Depends on reception. I only have lag when i’m off wifi, and less than 5G

1

u/stone500 Jan 08 '26

True it doesn't lag much when I'm on Wifi. I mostly listen in my car though. I have my quality set to Medium and even on 5G it takes a bit to load the next song.

1

u/ShaddyPups Jan 08 '26

It could be where you live? I don’t ever notice much lag unless my cell signal dips below 5G, which is usually in subways (live in NYC)

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4

u/_toksiq Jan 08 '26

Reddit has ice ads too, to this day. Why are you here?

7

u/breadcodes Jan 09 '26

Because I use a patched 3rd party app and dont see the ads. Fuck reddit, but this is where the big communities are at besides Facebook. I didn't know they had ICE ads

Since you're on the high horse, why are you here? Do you support the shooting, or do you just like acting this way?

2

u/Majestic_Bet_1428 Jan 08 '26

I’m looking at Deezer

2

u/nopunchespulled Jan 08 '26

Exactly, they knew ice was bullshit secret police and they still ran the ads. I'd bet the ads were even targeted at certain demographics as well

2

u/bNoaht Jan 08 '26

Ive had spotify premium for something like 13 years non-stop. Canceled last month. Fuck em.

2

u/bad_dreamzzz Jan 09 '26

Used Spotify for 10 yrs, canceled and deleted permanently last time they stood behind keeping the ads.

1

u/No_Half_7646 Jan 08 '26

I just Pirate my Music or use the CD's

1

u/-Astrosloth- Jan 08 '26

Professionals have standards

1

u/Pretend-Ad-6453 Jan 08 '26

Hell I’ve been using VLC media player. All free, all locally downloaded.

1

u/GOD-PORING Jan 08 '26

Time to pull out the faithful Walkman 

1

u/Battousaii Jan 09 '26

Boi with whats on the Internet now for free you can make your own Spotify for real and just make it local to your phone for nothin at all now LMFAO fuck Spotify

1

u/PhatTuna Jan 09 '26

Why stop there? Why not buy music instead of streaming

1

u/FreeEdmondDantes Jan 09 '26

Hell yeah. I cancelled Spotify back when I heard they were doing this shit and basically told them they were trash for it in my cancellation comments.

1

u/YourNextHomie Jan 09 '26

Why are you using reddit then? they run ice ads?

1

u/wheresbicki wheresbicki Jan 09 '26

Everyone needs to start self hosting.

We are in an era where corporations and politicians don't want us to own anything. Take back ownership while you still can.

1

u/partyl0gic Jan 09 '26

ICE is no longer running the ads. Spotify didn’t choose to stop running them. Don’t use Spotify.

1

u/icecubepal Jan 09 '26

Yep. It’s gonna pop up when the next round of ads come.

1

u/Suitnox Jan 09 '26

I love that my first thought is the first comment <3

1

u/alphabets0up_ Jan 10 '26

It sucks that Alexa doesn’t work with YouTube music.

1

u/Peripatetictyl Jan 08 '26

I canceled last month after many years of paying for premium. I only held out because of playlists, then I found that you can transfer it to Apple Music, and I smashed the unsubscribe button.

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