Buying and ripping CDs is my way to go. Completely without social media features.

Bandcamp because you discover music since albums are so cheap.

Qobuz is good IMHO. I've heard good things about Tidal too.

I'm so glad I still just buy and maintain my own local music library.

Tidal is great as far as streaming services go in general.

Bandcamp + Yar har fiddle dee dee + Jellyfin or Plex.

I recently cancelled spotify and switched to a selfhosted navidrome server to stream my personal music collection.

I'm using Qobuz for music streaming. It's alright.

Last time I checked they pay artists more than the competition, they curate playlists and editorial content rather than pushing AI left and right, and my experience is generally good.

Minus points for lacking API and native Linux client. On desktop Linux the web app works well.

Deezer is my streamer of choice, nearly identical with artists, OK discovery. Premium includes high def and you can currently stream to multiple devices, like, say, play on sonos for the Kids and listen to yourself without one device stopping

Its funny how people are still using Spotify when other services exist. But yea people, complain about Spotify and it's features.

Edit: if you don't like something quit it, don't complain. Companies don't understand until numbers start dropping.

I like streaming music, I dont need to own it, but I have been struggling to find a good music streaming service.

I used Spotify for years but the amount of garbage they keep adding made me cancel my subscription. The last straw was when "smart shuffle" kept automatically turning itself back on.

First I switched to YouTube Music but the user experience is honestly trash and I moved on pretty quickly. The separation between video and music service was ridiculously inconsistent.

I used Tidal for a few months and I appreciated the simple UI. However, the recommendations are insanely bad. Not once have I found a new, good track on the daily mix to add to my library, it was driving me crazy.

I started using Qobuz only a few weeks ago. The track radio is honestly pretty bad so far. I start the radio on a lofi track and start hearing video game ambience noises 5 tracks later. Literally bird sounds with whitenoise from an OST album. I havent tried the daily/weekly queue a lot yet, but I hope its decent because I dont know what to try next.

I wish Spotify hadn't entshittified, it had the best recommendations/radios by far but its just not usable for me anymore.

It's because we live in late stage capitalism. Our systems require infinite growth, so when Spotify tries to grow in an over saturated market. How else can they increase profits? Throw shit from all over the place to see what works. This issue is why every company jumped on the Ai bandwagon because it was the first real leap in a Market since the internet. Problem is 51% of all money spent in America was spent by the top 10% of the population. That top 10% only needs one Spotify subscription per person. The bottom 90% aren't going to waste money anymore on subscription services.

I'm content with tidal for now. I mainly listen to music on my desktop, and I like that it's just music. No podcasts or things I don't want to see.

Winamp died because the company that acquired it tried to turn it into an everything app.

spotify started with more social media feel

Try Metrolist for android. I don't know what is available for pc in this manner. And if you're one of the "If buying isn't owning, then pirating isn't stealing" people, then there's option to save the mp3 files from both Spotify's and Deezer's database. Any telegram bot titling this kinda thing will do the job.

Honestly, Apple Music is not that bad. Tried to love tidal but the app just really sucks with frequent crashes and terrible ui.

Thus far Apple Music feels like old apple playing the streaming game and I have yet to find enshitified features being added. Even the recommendations are more in line with my expectations, think of artists with new or upcoming releases that the app knows you’ve been listening too.

Ui wise I still miss Spotify, it WAS just better. But it’s going further from that everyday. Apple Music also has flac quality if that interests you and you don’t have to pay extra for it. In terms of paying artists, tidal still takes the crown and apple is second.

Spotify customers created a bigger evil

I had Tidal, but sending music to my home Sonos devices was too much of a pain in my butt so I reverted back to Spotify.

So, I'm a bit of an enigma, so take my recommendation with a grain of salt. I use Tidal. It does the best, out of all my criteria.

• 1. Friendly privacy policy. It's very straight forward, and from what my lawyer friend said, it's pretty solid.
• 2. Hi def streaming. It's a must for me, as I have some nice cans and speakers I wanna listen through.
• 3. Payout to artists. Although they don't pay as much as Qobuz, they pay a substantial amount relatively, and the aforementioned points make up for the rest.
• 4. Ease of use. The app is really great and it's easy to use and I find that after curating my music for awhile, I get solid recommendations and the radio stations always hit well. Although, I do wish there was more variety in the stations. Sometimes, it plays the same tracks across stations.

All in all, I'm very happy with Tidal and I don't think I'm switching anytime soon.

And Duolingo now has chess. What a complete joke; both those corporations and the people using everything uncritically.

Never left Pandora. Still works exactly like i set it up. Damn, 15years ago?