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Comment by mbrock | Hacker News Reader

Pretty solid is a bit of an exaggeration in my case.

About once a day, my MacBook's fans start spinning like crazy. By now I know... oh, it's "Spotify Helper" stuck in a loop again, lemme force quit it.

Before I reinstalled, instead Spotify would show me "there's a new version!" every single day, seemingly without upgrading anything.

These serious quality issues, plus the horrifying visual ads (for playlists and new albums) make Spotify a product I kind of love to hate.

I mostly dig the iOS version though.

But I'm still angry with how these services transform the idea of "music player" into "streaming client hooked into the commercial music industry."

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* I use PC, which runs it flawlessly.

* I pay for my streaming music which has no ads so I don't get a freebie AND complain about advertisements (really man...?)

Nice that it works well on PC for you!

Yeah, I'm a paying Spotify customer and have been for years. You misunderstand which ads I'm talking about.

I guess I do misunderstand which ads I'm talking about since I have an ad-free experience.

I mean this stuff: http://i.imgur.com/qb36KVA.png

That is called "Content".

Hilariously, this exact website could not stop fawning over Apple Music's nearly identical curated, editor-created or automatically generated content.

Personally, I love the Spotify curated content.

I listen to my Discover Weekly every single Monday and very often choose one of their regularly changing playlists when I'm not listening to my own lists.

I don't claim to represent this website and I didn't fawn for a second over Apple Music...

If we're playing the "who claimed what game" then I didn't claim you represented this website nor did I claim you fawned over Apple Music.

I was providing what I found to be humorous context regarding the content you derided as advertisement (I'm a bit surprised that curated channels of music are ads to you, do you think that television "Channels" are advertisements for television content too ??)

Okay...

Well, I just don't understand why it's hilarious that "this website" liked Apple Music's curated stuff, as a context for me not being a fan of Spotify's curated stuff. To me it's just like, a bunch of people liked this one thing, and now I dislike this one other thing, ha ha?

Here's Spotify's Chief Revenue Officer glowing about the advertising potential of their curated playlists:

> “Music is an integral part of life, day in and day out,” said Jeff Levick, Chief Revenue Officer, Spotify. “Our new targeting solutions based on rich behavioral insights combined with our global footprint in 58 markets give brands unprecedented ways to reach streaming consumers.”

https://press.spotify.com/se/2015/04/16/spotify-launches-pla...

Sure, I pay to avoid the actual jingles, but the playlists are still part of their advertising program. And yeah, I think placing these suggested playlists in my visual field every time I launch the app constitutes a form of advertising.

Mostly though I just have a visceral aversion to the copy they use. They give me the same bad feelings as when I look at billboards or hear radio jingles. Right now it's suggesting me to "go out and own this day like if you were boss of the world." I would prefer to use a Spotify client without this stuff.

>plus the horrifying visual ads (for playlists and new albums) make Spotify a product I kind of love to hate

You mean in Browse, where you go to discover new music? Is there a streaming service that doesn't have a Browse section with recommended playlists/albums/etc?

It's not like they're advertising Dove soap or Coca Cola, they're showing you new music.

I'm not saying Spotify is a morally bad company for showing these things. It's just my personal taste that creates my own idiosyncratic revulsion... mostly with the advertised playlists.

"No need to stress out. Stay relaxed with these easy, upbeat songs."

"Soul. It's about feeling. It's about authenticity."

"Coffee table jazz. Relax to the sound of jazz."

"Chill hits. New and hot hits for your chill moments."

I'm just saying, like, my preferred Emacs-based music player (Bongo) never shows this kind of inane, awful, soul-crushing babble.

I started using Pandora purely because of Pithos (a native Desktop app). Uses next to no resources and has all the functionality. Hell, there's even pianobar, a command-line client. How I wish we had these for Google Music, my platform of choice. Spotify is right out unless I need to listen to a specific song.

God i hate Spotify Helper

I googled for "spotify helper 100 cpu" and there seem to be tons of forum threads of people complaining about it... but the community forum insists that I register an account to even view the threads linked by Google, so, um, maybe I'll just go back to sheer piracy, so I can use open source software that doesn't break my computer.

    rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/com.spotify.client/

fixes that for me. For a while.

I had no idea it was another fucking chrome wrapper now. It used to be completely native didn't it? This explains a lot.

Does anyone fancy putting the last good client up on mega or something?

Between windows and android I literally have had no issues using the mobile and the desktop apps.

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