What other streaming service is even comparable?
I use Deezer as a music service. It's $15/month for HiFi comparable to Tidal's HiFi subscription. Tidal, however, has DRM that does not allow it to play on Linux as a webapp nor does it have a Linux desktop app. Tidal's out. Now, here's the interesting thing: I never use Deezer to listen to music.
- I use Deemix Server (https://download.deemix.app/server/) to serve a webapp on my media server. This plugs into my Deezer account and I use it to download FLAC quality audio into my media server.
- My media server, of course, runs Plex (https://www.plex.tv/). I have a lifetime pass and it's totally worth it, but keep in mind it is required for this setup.
- Locally on my (phone|laptop|desktop) I use Plexamp (https://plexamp.com/). Plexamp is a beautiful high quality player with no bells and whistles but does one thing really well and that's play my music.
- Since this is all offline playing downloaded files, I use last.fm which plugs into both Deezer (https://blog.last.fm/2012/01/06/scrobble-with-deezer) and Plex (https://www.plex.tv/blog/plex-media-server-v0-9-12-5-a-tasty...) for recommendations, tracking listening, and connecting with friends. Honorable mention to MusicButler (musicbutler.io) which used to be free and simply notifies you of new releases for a "Release Radar" experience.
All this combines to be a less seamless but far better experience than using spotify.
I run a service, https://asti.ga , which is a "third way" - a streaming service for your own music. You stream your music from cloud storage services, of which you can pick your own (the biggies are supported - Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox etc etc). Let me know if you have any questions or feedback!
- The "radio" feature sucks
I used the radio station feature of Play Music heavily to find new stuff. If I asked for a radio station of The Cure I'd get a nice variety of 80's music matching the genre with The Cure about every 6-8 songs. When I asked YouTube Music for a radio station based on The Cure I get 17 out of the first 30 tracks were The Cure.
- It has a habit of losing tracks
I think what happens is that your band releases a remastered version of a song that's almost identical. The old song is removed from the catalog and the new song is added, but playlists only get the removal, so the track just disappears.
- It's unclear what I can play where
There are a variety of tracks that have different usage abilities. Some songs can be played locally, but can't be cast. So when I create a playlist and then cast it to my Google Home, some tracks just won't play.
So why do I still have it? It's cheap for a family (since all members get it) and it's bundled with YouTube Premium, so I don't get YouTube ads. I've forgotten that ads even run on YouTube, to the point that it's a jarring experience when I see them on somebody else's screen.
This seems to be a feature of YouTube in general. I can’t count how many times I’ve been “unable to view a YouTube kids video in MiniPlayer” for a video that’s definitely not for kids.
Would recommend tbh.