this post was submitted on 17 May 2025
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It’s 2025, and Spotify still doesn’t offer lossless audio. Don’t understand why anyone would keep using it with so many alternatives available.
The number of people with the audio equipment needed to even notice a difference with lossless audio is a rounding error, especially on their phones using their AirPods/galaxy buds.
You don't need that much special equipment to tell the difference. I have a lil shitty Jelly Star. I can tell the difference between Spotify's High and a FLAC from bandcamp with it's speaker, Bluetooth headphones (Sony Link Buds) and my Car speakers.
Clearly most people care more about other factors than they do about audio quality that isn't even discernable through their Bluetooth earbuds.
Yeah seriously; unless you're an audiophile who spends extra on quality headphones, your Bluetooth buds are probably using the SBC codec, which cuts off frequencies at 16kHz and thus is hardly better than listening to a 128Kbps MP3. (In Android you can see what codec your headphones are using by going into the developer options.)
And to be honest, if you care enough about sound quality to spend extra on the high res tier in your streaming service of choice, you're probably using wired headphones. Audiophiles don't fuck with Bluetooth.
i dumped spotify because they raised the price so they could include podcasts that i couldn't give less of a rat's ass about. also the ai bullshit and the refusal to allow me to block artists. spotify can get fucked
Streaming sites not including the option to block content is frustrating.
I remember when Netflix let you hide individual movies so they didn't clutter up the categories. When it was removed there was a rumor that giving it a low score would hide it but that never worked for me. Don't even remember the other services offering an option to hide stuff.
Really wish that option was common.
You can still do that on YouTube.
I don't think of youtube as a streaming site for some reason. Maybe because I only interact with it on a computer and the others through TVs even though everything can go through both.
They also have movies, but I figured "buying" them over there is more expensive than getting DVDs or sometimes even BluRays shipped from UK to Slovakia via Amazon.
Random example: Blade Runner 2049 bought from seller RAREWAVES for €5.64 ($6.30 currently) incl. shipping, the DVD itself being £2.24 ($2.97 currently). It was new, not used.
"Renting" on YouTube for 48 hours within 30 days is $3.99, while "Buying" is $14.99.
Seems like I could get it used in "Very Good" condition on BluRay for around €6. Just UHD BluRay is more expensive than YouTube.
Raised the price for podcasts, raised the price for audiobooks. Guys, I just want a music service…
Then as you mentioned…no ability to block artists or songs. I honestly believe that not listening to a particular song by an artist you otherwise like made it show up even more in radio/shuffle play. Can’t you guys clue into the fact that I skip that track EVERY time you start playing it.
People made alternate desktop clients to customize the homepage cause they were unwilling. The mobile app wasn’t so lucky. Again…my home page doesn’t need to be podcasts, audio books and artists I’ve never listened to but are obviously being boosted by paid promotions.
When they started throwing up full page dialog popups recommending the most ridiculous not even close to what I listen to content multiple times a listening session…I was out. Didn’t just cancel premium, deleted the account and uninstalled the apps. I’m not paying you to actively annoy the shit out of me.
Edit: before people mention the ‘hide this song’ feature. That wasn’t always a thing and is fatally flawed. It just blocks the song on that one album/playlist. If it’s a popular song it’s on who knows how many compilation albums, etc. I’m not gonna go block the same song 10+ times. Heaven forbid it has covers I don’t want to hear either…
I never moved from pandora to Spotify and could never find a good reason to.
I realize I’m a decade out of the loop, but what did it do better?
i never used pandora--is it true you can't make your own playlists? that would be a no go for me. i switched to tidal and have no complaints
Pandora was initially antithetical to playlists, the concept was utilizing the music genome project to play songs that are like songs you’ve liked, intelligent radio.
Playlists probably was the thing Spotify had that pandora didn’t have that made Spotify get big, you can make playlists now.
I only use pandora because it’s music discovery is so good tbh.
Playlists? The reason people use Spotify is you can play the individual song or album that you want and you can’t with Pandora. That’s the key difference. Not playlists lol
I’m not entirely sure how selecting the song or songs you want to listen to differs from a playlist, but ok.
I think the concept of a playlist is exactly what you’re describing.
Oh I fundamentally misunderstood the term I guess lol I was reading it as being able to make playlists (like broadly? If that makes sense) as some sort of key feature.
I think generally it is the key feature.
Internet radio existed before pandora came along, pandora was novel in that it implemented the music genome project. The idea of the user selecting the next song was counter to their intent.
Playlists, and/or the user selecting their songs wasn’t exactly novel except for the free2play model w/ads allowing its widespread adoption.
IMO pandora paved the way for the commercial viability of Spotify, now pandora has playlists and you can select individual songs and albums. I still use it just for the music discovery
it's the social features and the network effect. if you want to make a playlist and share it with your friends the easiest way to get them to listen to it is to host it on spotify. also blends, collaborative playlist, jams, and now listening all provide the illusion of connection through a shared listening experience. and it's not so much that these things are better than what we used to have for sharing music, it's that corporations have all killed our ways of sharing music. that's what they really hated about groove shark. artists made more money in the groove shark era, but umg, sony, and warner didn't control how we shared on it.
Just switched from iPhone to Android. If your Bluetooth headphones support aptx you can definitely hear the difference
It’s not the artist exploitation or their generally predatory practices, no, it’s the lossless audio that really got your attention lmfao
Not OP, but probably all of those still register, only he was using lossless audio as an example of how it's not even that good comparing with other platforms who actually do better by the artists they host. As in, a lot of people are willing to turn a blind eye to unethical practices if the product is great, but it's not even that great, comparing with other existing services. Whether or not people actually do care about lossless audio is a different thing, though.
That’s fair. I was being tongue in cheek but looking back at it it is coming off as a little overly critical of them
The recommendations are hard to beat, but I hate how these moderns streaming platforms make you a passive listener. My most enjoyable music listening days were when I actively managed my music collection.
I haven’t even thought about recommendations - I’ve never used the recommendation system on any music streaming platform. I’m fully hands-on with my music. I actively use the internet to discover new artists and curate my own playlists and library.
I do a bit of both. For awhile I was relying just on algorithms but switching to primarily active management the past few years has really been invigorating. Renewed my excitement for music. When I do use algorithms to discover some new stuff it's being fed mostly from my own curationnwhich is so much better of getting stuck in a loop where the algorithm recommends something, you select some favorites and then it recommends off those. This starts to really dull and homogonize your library after awhile.
I need to go back to this, never should’ve given it up honestly.
I use it because it's free and tolerable when modded (on pc at least), and a lot of my favorite artists drop there. I get to check new releases, and if something isn't there I'll check other platforms. I will never pay for spotify on principle though.
I am interested in alternatives. I stopped paying for Spotify when they were pushing Joe Rogan so hard, and YouTube Music isn't really doing it for me for a variety of reasons. Any good suggestions?
This is a bigger change, but I switched to Bandcamp and listen to music I own. I like the process of finding music I like and saving it to my wishlist, and I mass-purchase whenever Bandcamp Friday comes around so the artist gets the whole paycheck.
It depends how much music you listen to though, and how much variety you need day to day. Realise it's a bit more involved than algorithm based streaming but I also feel a lot more like I've built a library just for me.
I use Apple Music, and I’ve also tried Tidal and Deezer. They’re all good. I recommend taking advantage of the one-month free trials each service offers and seeing which one you prefer. At the end of the day, it really comes down to personal preference.
I would also recommend Pandora. I've had a family plan for years so I don't know for sure but there used to be a free (ad supported) tier that you could check out. And to reiterate comments from above, custom playlists and song/album play on demand is available (though some tracks are only available in discovery mode).
I second this.