As per title, if you had to switch away from Spotify ASAP, what streaming service would you go with? Ideally something around the same price range, meaning the change won’t incur in extra expenses. Also good if the service does its job well: playing music and paying artists. Any feature parity with Spotify is a bonus, except podcasts, which don’t require a paid streaming service. Or audiobooks. Focus on music. No piracy either (it’s illegal). The more money going to artists, the better.
Edit: extra bonus points if it is not 'Murican! Also, piracy is very illegal!!!
Selfhosting is not piracy because you’re only streaming the albums you already bought and paid for. If you’re not down for buying CD’s or other physical media, or maybe you no longer have a disc drive, then you should be buying the lossless audio direct from the artists or via a service like Bandcamp. I just bought a few vinyls from Bandcamp and I had them to listen as to on all my devices (as lossless CD quality FLAC files) inside of a few minutes after purchase. Plex paired with plexamp on devices for ease of use. Replace with Jellyfish in a pinch. MPD might work, but you’d need to be better at networking than I am, also you’d need a steady internet connection at both ends.
Self-hosting is not piracy, it’s fair use. Piracy is when a fool that only bought a license to listen instead of buying the actual media decides they want to listen on another device.
Self-hosting is work, though. I cannot guarantee quality service, I don’t think. I mean, I do have an old laptop acting as a server, of sorts. Pi-hole and all. But I don’t use it for much else cause I don’t trust meself. Only a matter of time until I lose all files on server or something. Or suddenly unable to hear music on the go or whatever. I’d be more likely to have the files on my phone than to self-host
Yeah, I think self-hosting can be overkill for music, for most people most of the time. If you’re an average 2/3 device user like me, copying the files around isn’t too bad.
Either way though, +1 to both buying and ripping CDs, and buying from Bandcamp. It takes some effort, and isn’t as good in terms of trying new music. But it’s nice to have some limitations sometimes. Having almost every album and song right at your fingertips is great, but the amount of choice can be overwhelming.
I can’t say much because I mostly use Spotify too. But it’s also just nice to have local files as an option.
I suggested Plex because it syncs local copies on a per device setting so you can stream and sync pretty seamlessly. I haven’t copied a file around except for making backups for nearly a decade now. It does audiobooks with saved progress inside the files too.
Gotta agree on the overwhelm of options. I indeed find limitations interesting in that regard. Maybe streaming services for trying stuff, and then buying anything worth buying. Too bad physical tends to be quite expensive. At least from the last time I’ve seen vinyls in a general tech and other stuff store. Is online cheaper?
Dunno, usually seems about the same. Sometimes you can get cheap ones by browsing vintage used records, but then condition is hit or miss. And of course it’s near impossible to find any particular thing you’re looking for.
I try to approach it in tiers - streaming for broad strokes, trying things, listening casually.
If there’s a song/album/band that I decide I really like, maybe buy some songs on Bandcamp or CD to add to my digital collection; either can usually be pretty cheap.
Then vinyl I look at as a prestige format, and just want to get a few favorite albums there.
I was thinking online as in digital download, instead of vinyls. I don’t have a CD player. I think digital downloads could be interesting, though I am tasked with not łosing the files. Unless they allow me to download it again, unlike Google Play Music, that vanished off the face of the web along with the songs I purchased for 0 monies back in the day on lucky deals and whose more recent download I managed to lose, probably due to poor backups in one of many system reinstalls
Ah, gotcha. Yeah, online should be a more affordable option then.
I was thinking online as in digital download, instead of vinyls. I don’t have a CD player. I think digital downloads could be interesting, though I am tasked with not łosing the files. Unless they allow me to download it again, unlike Google Play Music, that vanished off the face of the web along with the songs I purchased for 0 monies back in the day on lucky deals and whose more recent download I managed to lose, probably due to poor backups in one of many system reinstalls
Gotta agree on the overwhelm of options. I indeed find limitations interesting in that regard. Maybe streaming services for trying stuff, and then buying anything worth buying. Too bad physical tends to be quite expensive. At least from the last time I’ve seen vinyls in a general tech and other stuff store. Is online cheaper?
Gotta agree on the overwhelm of options. I indeed find limitations interesting in that regard. Maybe streaming services for trying stuff, and then buying anything worth buying. Too bad physical tends to be quite expensive. At least from the last time I’ve seen vinyls in a general tech and other stuff store. Is online cheaper?
Plex is very accessible I feel. It’s how I got into self hosting. I loved the idea of having the iTunes airplay experience on my phone everywhere.
Its definitely worth trying