Post · bonfire.cafe

So there are multiple issues with #Spotify. Donating money to #Trump, investing in AI weapon technology for #Israel (read genocide), very or no royalties for artist, etc.

I'm thinking leaving Spotify for a while now. There is one issue and that is my 14 year old son. He is completely in music and listens to a lot of (older) music I also like. He shares carefully curated playlists with me, like we shared mix-tapes back in the days. He uses Spotify to discover music, like we did in the recordstore or festivals back in the day.

So another streaming service with a comparable catalogue is something I can't get around I'm afraid. But all those are big-tech or smaller big-tech (middle-tech, how do you call that)? So I tried 3 options; #Qobuz, #Tidal and #Deezer.

* Qobuz: French. Owned by the British Xandrie SA (website has not https 🤔). Although having a large catalogue (all 3 options are comparable in that aspect), there are a few things holding me back. 1. not an updated (unofficial) #Linux app; 2. the #Android app is not that good IMO. Looks outdated; 3. the onboarding resulted in artists I don't know or don't like; 4. The prices are a bit higher as the two others. I'm on a budget.

* Tidal: >>>

1/2

Søren Ladegaard

@sorenladegaard@social.vivaldi.net replied · last month

@joenepraat I went for Qobuz. I recommend it 😊

joene 🏴🍉

@joenepraat@todon.nl replied · last month

>>>

* #Tidal: Norwegian-US. Owned by the US based Block. A company owned by Jack FUCKING Dorsey 🤢. What is a shame, because Tidal looks good in all categories. Even the prices. And it has multiple (unofficial) #Linux apps and a sublime #Android app.

* #Deezer: French. But for 41% owned by the American Access Industries and a lot of smaller owners. With Deezer I get a discount with my Odido phone subscription. Also Deezer has a very decent actively maintained (unofficial) app (despite being Electron). The Android app is just as sublime as the one from Tidal. All apps are btw better than the #Spotify app.

So I created 3 trials. After an hour I ditched #Qobuz keeping Tidal and Deezer for more testing. For now it looks I go for Deezer. A few years ago I tested Deezer as well, but at that moment it was not good enough for me. They improved a lot. Deezer is mostly European, but it's still of course capitalist and vulnerable for #enshittification.

Tidal is not yet enshittifified as far as I can see, but with Dorsey and other tech-bros we all know it won't take that long. Plus it is American. The Norwegian part has nothing to see AFAIK.

On-topic comments welcome.

2/2

joene 🏴🍉

@joenepraat@todon.nl replied · last month

Epilogue: After checking the by far largest owner of #Deezer, Access Industries, I decided to give it up. Access Industries is also the owner of Clal Industries, an Israeli industrial investment group. They are guilty for at least building on the Westbank and much more. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Access_Industries) And this is just one aspect of their portfolio. #AccessIndustries is very big and therefore evil.

Besides owning things, they also invest in companies including Snapchat, Square, Yelp, Alibaba, Gett, Spotify (!), Zalando, DigitalOcean (!) and of course Deezer.

What I'm going to do is this: I keep Spotify only for my son's playlist (we have a family account, so only a few euro's per month) and I am going to start exploring real alternatives like #Funkwhale in parallel.

End of session.

#ClalIndustries

Angry sweet antiracist enby

@vreer@todon.nl replied · 4 weeks ago

@joenepraat What about Qobus?

joene 🏴🍉

@joenepraat@todon.nl replied · 4 weeks ago

@vreer "Qobuz: French. Owned by the British Xandrie SA (website has not https 🤔). Although having a large catalogue (all 3 options are comparable in that aspect), there are a few things holding me back. 1. not an updated (unofficial) #Linux app; 2. the #Android app is not that good IMO. Looks outdated; 3. the onboarding resulted in artists I don't know or don't like; 4. The prices are a bit higher as the two others. I'm on a budget."

Sofia ☭🇧🇷☭

@sofiav@mastodon.online replied · last month

@joenepraat thanks for doing this. So the catalogues on all of them are about the same, and the big difference is the apps?

Murdoc Addams 🧛🏻:ri: 🇨🇦

@murdoc@autistics.life replied · last month

@joenepraat
Yeah, getting away from big tech is hard, usually requires sacrifice (I still mess Reddit). I never got into any streaming services, I prefer to have copies of my music/media entirely under my control. I have been checking out Bandwagon (https://bandwagon.fm), but of course no big artists there. Some cool stuff though.

TurblesCelbor

@turblescelbor.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy replied · last month

Eh the issue with all this corporate streaming services is that it's very hard to avoid feeding money to the USA and its fascist ghouls. IDK I switched to self-hosting music a few months back, but I get that's not an option most people have the time to set up.

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