What's the rationale for not building homebrew media players instead of railing against Spotify...?
This would work if you almost never venture outside of your existing music catalog. If that's you, it's probably also a better financial decision to just purchase your own music in stead of 'renting' it.
According to my 'Wrapped' I listened to 4600 different songs this year, from 3000 artists. Most of them I discovered because of Spotify. So for me, Spotify is very much worth it and I would not be able to self host anything to give me near the value that Spotify adds. And I can't even contemplate pirating all these songs, since I find that morally wrong because the paid services (for music) are decently affordable and provide good value.
Aye, aye.
> Then I need to spend time on other web sites for music discovery?
One cost of cultivating tastes, as opposed to being fed by a recommendation algorithm, is the risk of possibly hearing music you might not like, as well as the time required spent doing so.
There are open-source music recommendation algorithms but having survived radio payola I consider that approach a step backward.
> This would work if you almost never venture outside of your existing music catalog.
I favor bulk music downloads (more than I could ever listen to) and randomized playlists, but then, I may have a higher tolerance for my tastes not being pandered to.
> I can't even contemplate pirating all these songs,
Seems to me that you are doing precisely that.
> since I find that morally wrong because the paid services (for music) are decently affordable and provide good value.
Wait, you find it morally wrong to infringe copyright (a specious proposition in any case) because the paid services are affordable? What is the price point that makes piracy moral, then?
Honestly, at about €1 per MP3 (which is on the low end, looking at Beatport), I couldn't afford listening to the amount of different music I do now.
> fed by a recommendation algorithm
As opposed to being fed by the maintainer of some web site?
> I may have a higher tolerance for my tastes not being pandered to
> Seems to me that you are doing precisely that.
> What is the price point that makes piracy moral, then?
To me, your entire comment feels incredibly snobby. It's like you see people who use streaming services as lesser people, just because they use a different way to listen to music. It also feels like that opinion is based on an incredibly limited assumption of how people use streaming services.
Six or seven years ago there was genuine independent acts breaking through Spotify. Today, the ones who get played on the so-called recommendation algorithm are seriously propped up by a small team of relatively private, inaccessible curators of the major editorial playlists who only answer to established music industry professionals with their corporate agendas. Spotify's recommendations are not the fair system that you think it is, and is worse than radio tastemakers of the past as they have no skin in the game thanks to their anonymity.
> watched Spotify's editorial playlists ... leading to a slow homogenization of music culture
All based on the assumption that people only use editorial playlists and there's no other way.
> Spotify's recommendations are not the fair system that you think it is
I never wrote anything even remotely saying that I think their recommendations are 'fair'.
> worse than radio tastemakers of the past
Is it though? With radio, you had pretty much no choice. I can now pick from millions of playlists on a whim. If I find a new artist in some way, I can listen to all their music and I can instantly find artists with similar styles.
You assume that people only listen to curated playlists.
You gatekeep by implying that only genuine independent acts are worth listening to.
You imply that if Spotify wouldn't exist, people would have better ways to find music.
None of this is true. Most people would would just go back to listening to the same 10 songs being played on the radio over and over. Or they would venture to iTunes, Beatport or the likes, which are just as curated as Spotify.
For me, Spotfy is a nearly limitless collection of all the music I could want to listen to. Vacationing in Germany and hear a Polish song I like? Add it to Spotify and find more from the artist, while still on the highway. Feel nostalgic? Play Major Tom and some more Bowie on a whim while on the way to work. Want to discover music that sounds somewhat like another artist? Open Spotify Radio for the artist and let the Algo show me some other stuff. Suddenly have a craving for a genre I never listen to? Search for a playlist on the genre, which usually isn't curated by Spotify.
Through this process I recently found some songs by an artist who's most played song is at <3k plays. This is a musician who sings in an incredibly local dialect. I don't know how I would've found them otherwise. Especially since I found them while road tripping, not while reading some snobby music blog.
So please stop with the gatekeeping and just accept that people might actually like Spotify and use it in another way than just playing curated playlists. And even if they do just use it that way, accept it.
It's great that you can find an artist that has <3k plays that sings in an incredibly local dialect. That artist is probably making $10 over the entire year. I don't think that's a fair deal for artists. Spotify is the single biggest gatekeeper for artists finding meaningful success. That is a fact.
And especially Spotify does this extremely well.