Just putting it out there for discussion.
Iām not a Spotify subscriber.
Or Apple music.
Or Amazon music.
Etc.
āI can see a world where Spotify doesnāt existā: will a new generation of music streaming companies succeed? | Music streaming | The Guardian
I do not use Spotify , I use Deezer
I tend to think that itās more likely to be subscription fatigue that kills Spotify than another streaming service that has a slightly different angle.
Streaming arrived too late for me. It would be interesting to see an alternative timeline where 16 year old me had access to streaming instead of buying albums. Would I have developed the same love of music and the desire to learn to play? As it is I only really listen to music that Iāve already purchased from my large collection. I have access to YouTube Music as part of my YouTube premium subscription but I rarely listen as Iāve already got so much that I love and donāt have time to listen to!
You will never know if you donāt try it.
I donāt particularly like Spotify but have used it especially for BLIM listening. The so called high quality(CD level) streaming is only with a subscription and often that is throttled back lower for load balancing on their servers and data pipes, so you may not get what you paid for. The none subription service is even worse and will be at low lossy streaming levels and does impact Sound Quality, it may be ok for in a car or on the go listening but the end listening experience will be compromised.
I have used Qobuz, excellent hi-res streaming service . Tidal nearly as good but went down the MQA route for steaming to save on band width, there was a long argument about MQA and eventually the inventors were force to admit it did remove some data which itās algorithms then try to replace on replay and it can cause data loss.
IMHO if you want high SQ go for Qobuz, if you want to support the artists you listen to then use bandcamp or similar and buy from them direct.
The article wonāt load for me for some reason, so I can only go on what I see here. I donāt think people really care if a company is nimble and open-minded. Some people care where their subscription fees go, but most do not. Consumers at large will do what they always do, choose the option that appears to offer the best value for them personally. Whether thatās some evil corporation or a startup with artists at itās core is largely irrelevant to the average person. If the new companies provide a better or equal service for a better price, theyāll succeed. If they donāt then they wonāt.
Personally, I donāt use any streaming services. Tried free Spotify for a while but saw no reason to subscribe. If I want new music I buy it outright once rather than being perpetually charged for it. I can play it anytime, anywhere, on a device of any age, with or without an internet connection. I can check out new artists before I buy for free on YouTube. So what am I really gaining with a monthly fee? Nothing, just less money to buy music Iām really interested in.
This is an interesting topic for me. Iām an avid user of Spotify, but I have heard the negative things about the company, which bother me to some degree. However, the huge catalog that Spotify offers is a game-changer for me. If I think back to my high school and college days when I would scrimp and save and buy an album maybe every 2 months, well compare that to āHmm, Iāve heard this Billy Strings guy is pretty good; I think Iāll listen to a few of his albums today.ā
I suppose these alternate streaming services donāt have that huge amount of choice. I suppose I could consider them in addition to Spotify.
I know many people are like you, but I donāt understand how they consume music. Where do you get your music from? I could not live without a sub to one of these services with a big catalog.
I donāt know if this fits in the right way and I canāt get/find anything with English subtitles ( found it 
) but if you look from here you get a good idea of āāwhat goes very wrong with Spotyfi ā¦ if you are good at this language then watch the entire piece by this great satirical comedianā¦ known for some viral broadcasts against the ruling government/people .
Who makes money from the music on Spotify?
No idea why, but if I click on the orange link I can download the English subtitled version here .
same video , I hope I copy the English subtitlesā¦watch from 20:08
Greetings
I can understand the passion for collecting albums, the beautiful cover, the feeling of holding the disc in your hand and putting it on to enjoy the musicā¦ but itās not my thing. Iāve always been a radio listener who wants to consume music all the time and during all activities. Unfortunately, with almost all radio stations, I often feel that the playlist is repeated every day. Then I get bored at some point and go to Spotify, where there is an endless amount of beautiful music to discover.
As I said I use Deezer which is similar to Spotify
I use it because I often listen to music when I m outside my house
You think less about the pain if you listen to music so whenever I go oustide , I use Deezer
I ve been listening to music a lot all my life
8 hours a day working while listening to the radio for 15 years !
If you re an occasional listener , the radio is good , If you listen to it everyday for hours , you find out that its often the same songs coming over and over
its lacks diversity !
Using a Cd player is also a good but you need to carry many CDs with you then
An MP3 player is great to avoid that issue , you just need to spend time changing the playlist regularly
Streaming services already have playlists made , and you can listen to a great amount of music
most of all you can discover things outside of you comfort zone in a playlist
when you buy an album , you buy what you like , when you stream you can test new stuff
So I think that Spotify or Deezer are made for people who needs to listen to a lot of music or want to discover new things
Should Deezer and Spotify pay more the artists ==> YES !
Should they not use AI ==> Of course !
( they just create music with AI to avoid paying artists , making the industry even worse )
are they doing that ? NO !!!
So if there are out there new streaming services who are artists friendly , it will definitely be a good thing !
We need it !
My answer to this is that Iāve built up a large library of my own over almost 40 years since I started buying CDs in my teens. These days Iāll buy the digital download, generally from the iTunes Store. As thereās no DRM on iTunes Store purchases Iām quite happy to do this and Iām not an audiophile so the quality is plenty good enough for my lo-res ears. I ripped all of my CDs (which were taking up too much physical space and now reside in the attic) which now live on my phone and my iPad so Iāve got all that music available at all times which I can stream to a variety of speakers in my house
The benefit of streaming, for me, is discovering new artists and music. Of the few services I have tried, Spotify seems to have the nicest algorithms for this. So I like it.
Back in the 90ās there was a service called āMusic Matchā. That was great! You could pick a few songs an it would create a playlist based on them and similar songs, then you could adjust it by clicking āmore like thisā, āless like thisā and so on. Simple and effective. I canāt find anything quite like it anymore.
Another vote for Qobuz from me. Canāt imagine a world without being able to play almost anything at CD quality (at a minimum) at anytime.
Hi Joshua,
It looks the same as what I have with YouTube Music (subscription 10 euros here )that you describe. It makes mix maps from various styles (I have never used it but I just started looking at it all)ā¦ and I looked up that if I delete a song (or give a thumbs down) this is taken into account.
Oh may, while typing this story Iām looking to see if I can find more (or at least something of) useful information, but what possibilities I suddenly see, Iāve never scrolled/clicked down since Iāve had this for 5 yearsā¦ 
And there is a good chance that I am now confusing YouTube with a real streaming service that I am not familiar with ā¦so 
Oh well, this is of course far too obvious and you must have already figured it out yourself if this youtubemusic thing works for you (or that service works differently for you, that is also possible)
Greetings
I have used Apple for several years now. Reasonable price, huge selection. Have never tried the others youāve mentioned so I cant really compare.
I donāt sub to any music services. Where do I get music? I use a mix. There are a couple local radio stations that I like. My favorite for the music is a local nonprofit station that focuses heavily on local music. Major drawback to that station if you listen for a long time is that they repeat the news (mostly the same news) every hour on the hour. I get enough news that when Iām listening to music, I mostly donāt want to hear it. But I really like the music this station plays so sometimes I tolerate it.
I occasionally stream music, and when I do, it tends to be Pandora. I was late to use Spotify, primarily because at first you couldnāt just create an account with an email address - you HAD to link your social media account. When I did start using Spotify, I never really got on with the buckets it put things in. Nowadays, I stay away from Pandora on purpose because itās the worst for paying artists (and Iāve become friends with artists who have major problems with this). The military AI money just adds fuel to my avoidance.
My preferred way to consume music is to listen to music that I have purchased outright. I acquire it from a mixture of sources. Some of it is from cds that I bought in the pre-streaming days and later ripped to mp3s. Some of it is music that I got through Napster bitd before I ever thought about artist compensation. Some of it I got through iTunes purchases. Lately, I tend to buy cds from the artists themselves at shows and then rip to mp3. Iāve also purchased a good amount of music from Bandcamp.
For in-the-car music consumption, streaming doesnāt tend to work well for me. I live in an area with spotty mobile data and I fairly regularly go to mobile data dead zones. On purpose. Streaming doesnāt work at all there. So itās either OTA radio or listening to mp3s saved onto a thumb drive.
When I cut the grass, I use an old phone connected to some noise cancelling headphones and I usually play music from my collection of mp3s because my home wifi doesnāt quite extend to all corners of my yard, streaming will often drop out. Mobile data in my neighborhood is weak so using my actual phone with a mobile data connection is no better (making calls at home with my cell phone tends to use wifi calling).
I go to shows on a regular basis. There are some local musicians I like and I seek them out. At least one of them has become popular enough that they donāt perform locally very often anymore and I can only see them locally when their tour schedule permits. One of the local musicians I like runs an open mic where my wife performs, and a lot of the people who perform at his open mics are legit artists who do their own paid shows and write their own music. I would say that more than half of the people who play there have written some of their own songs. Itās not your stereotypical shaky open mic. He regularly gets touring musicians from other cities show up to play a couple songs.
Corporate radio, yeah. Sometimes you can get lucky and find stations with deeper playlists and real DJs who make their own playlists according to some theme.
I think That what I hate the most on radios is the commercials
Way too much commercials ā¦ (
Another thing I like about the local nonprofit station. They are light on commercials compared to the vast majority of radio stations. They do run fundraising events every 6mo or so that changes things up a bit, but I gladly send money their way occasionally.
Iām a Pandora subscriber whose daughter gifted my wife & I a year of Spotify. I enjoy both services a lot!
Spotify has a ābusierā feel than Pandora, I like the scrolling lyrics found there.
My favorite uses for streamingā¦
Ease of finding music, either new stuff or golden oldies!
Ability to create & curate playlistsā¦ I have numerous playlists that I sort by genre or even sub-genre.
The above mentioned lyrics! Coming from an era when many if not most bands didnāt print out the lyrics in the album, I am quite often surprised by what is sung vs what I always thought it was!
Streaming in the car on long drivesā¦ we head to Southern California at least once a year for some beach time. Itās an 850 mile (1368 km) driveā¦ lots of spots where radio coverage is terrible. We used to play cassettes, then CDsā¦ now just hit the play button on the mobile phone & listen through the car speakers! So easy!
Tod
so true !!!