I can't imagine anyone wants this. Sharing music using links already works fine, and I don't really fancy having another conversation in another app to keep track of. And, seriously, what even is...
I can't imagine anyone wants this. Sharing music using links already works fine, and I don't really fancy having another conversation in another app to keep track of. And, seriously, what even is Spotify anymore? Is it music streaming? Podcasts? Audiobooks? A social network? A messaging app? They must've completely lost the plot.
I don't even like their focus on playlists, myself. Switched to Apple Music years ago, and am much happier with how that service puts the music front and centre, not itself.
It is jus the inevitable way things go for successful tech companies that have a thousand engineers that need “something” to do and share holders want infinite growth. In my opinion, music...
It is jus the inevitable way things go for successful tech companies that have a thousand engineers that need “something” to do and share holders want infinite growth. In my opinion, music streaming is pretty much a solved problem. I would be happy if they will just keep up with new releases and make it easy to see new releases from my favorite artists. But of course that isn’t enough for the “number must go up” people. Also happily switched to Apple Music. It is basic but it does no more than it needs to.
This is why I really hate the idea of companies being "tech companies". There are very few companies in this world who should be called "tech companies" and the vast majority of them are the...
This is why I really hate the idea of companies being "tech companies". There are very few companies in this world who should be called "tech companies" and the vast majority of them are the boring ones who are contracted to write enterprise code and maintain networked appliances. Netflix, Uber, Spotify, and other companies like them are all service companies. They don't make money on writing the software, they make money on providing the service. In the meanwhile it's getting hard to find places where I don't hear people complaining about tech being involved in places where it's not needed or wanted.
It makes me wonder if a new competitor that’s bootstrapped (zero VC funding) and intentionally lean and focused on providing a great service with stellar apps (let’s be honest, it wouldn’t be hard...
It makes me wonder if a new competitor that’s bootstrapped (zero VC funding) and intentionally lean and focused on providing a great service with stellar apps (let’s be honest, it wouldn’t be hard to do better than Spotify here) wouldn’t be able to support itself with word of mouth alone. I think people are getting tired of the endless creep of growth obsessed companies like Spotify.
I think the struggle in this space is the licensing costs required to provide a competing service. If you didn't basically invent the service model (Spotify) or have massive amounts of cash to get...
I think the struggle in this space is the licensing costs required to provide a competing service. If you didn't basically invent the service model (Spotify) or have massive amounts of cash to get going (Apple, Tidal, YouTube, etc.) I don't think you can break in. Bandcamp might be the closest we have to that, and they still have corporate masters and you have to individually pay for anything you want to stream in their app (I know you can stream a lot of things from their website but to use their app like any other streaming music service you do need to pay for the songs or albums first).
A small service would probably need to charge more, but I believe that there’d be a userbase willing to pay the premium if the service and its apps were legitimately good instead of just passable.
A small service would probably need to charge more, but I believe that there’d be a userbase willing to pay the premium if the service and its apps were legitimately good instead of just passable.
I don't think the solution to a product getting worse because of growth incentives is another product from another company. Any replacement will have the same incentives to do the same thing (if...
I don't think the solution to a product getting worse because of growth incentives is another product from another company. Any replacement will have the same incentives to do the same thing (if the company does well). If Spotify's changes bother you, I think you have to avoid paying for products like it in the first place.
I think the real competitor is buying (and/or pirating) music and playing those files.
Not every company has similar growth incentives. An example from the personal knowledge management space is Obsidian, a direct competitor to Notion and other similar apps/services. Obsidian is...
Not every company has similar growth incentives.
An example from the personal knowledge management space is Obsidian, a direct competitor to Notion and other similar apps/services. Obsidian is free of charge except for the features that cost them money to run (sync, publish). They do have paid licenses for those who wish to pay, but it isn't required. There's no proprietary file format, no account needed to use it, the files are local. Essentially no vendor lock-in of any kind.
They have a small team (less than ten people IIRC) so they don't need an immense turnover to keep going, and they're not hungry for exponential growth.
Bending Spoons - an EU based tech company that specialises in buying small businesses with loyal user bases and enshittifying them to oblivion - tried to buy Obsidian last year. Obsidian's CEO asked them if it would be okay to post the email online to gauge user response. When he posted it, he added a remark explaining that the team has permission to send such emails directly to trash, without even mentioning it to their colleagues, and that Obsidian was not even considering the offer.
I'd love to see similar businesses pop up in other areas. The relief I felt when I found Obsidian was immense and made me realise how much modern tech is likely contributing to people's overall stress and mental health problems.
I don’t agree that incentives will be the same between companies. There’s lots of small to medium sized privately held companies that try for sustainability and are happy as long as they stay in...
I don’t agree that incentives will be the same between companies. There’s lots of small to medium sized privately held companies that try for sustainability and are happy as long as they stay in the black and can keep the lights on. They just don’t make much noise because they’re not pulling headline-bait stunts and are quietly puttering along doing their thing.
Keeping files locally is a good option for those with an inkling of technical inclination. I’ve purchased a handful of CDs and Bandcamp tracks for things I like and listen to often because none of that is a stranger to me, having maintained a music library through the iPod era. Streaming music is a mass consumer product however and a huge percentage of users wouldn’t know where to start if they wanted to do it themselves.
So, my thought is that there is a place for a more ethical, sustainable streaming music service. Private ownership might be enough to keep it un-enshittified at least as long as its leadership stays in place, but perhaps a user-and-artist-owned model like Subvert is attempting may be a better fit in the long run.
Its app is pretty mediocre, though, which seems to be a commonality between all of them. This isn’t unavoidable however as proven by the numerous clients for self-hosted streaming services that...
Its app is pretty mediocre, though, which seems to be a commonality between all of them.
This isn’t unavoidable however as proven by the numerous clients for self-hosted streaming services that are much better. It comes down to poor choices in technologies and development practices, treating client apps as line items to check off instead of the core product experiences they are.
Honestly I'd love to be able to move to another music streaming platform as I do dislike a lot of Spotify's moves over the last several years, + sadly downloading all my music and/or sailing the...
Honestly I'd love to be able to move to another music streaming platform as I do dislike a lot of Spotify's moves over the last several years, + sadly downloading all my music and/or sailing the high seas isn't really feasible for me for a multitude of reasons. Sadly though, there's no other music streaming platform meeting all of my 5-6 basic criteria, which makes me have to put up with spotify for the time being
It may be because of the video Benn Jordan did on what amount per stream each services pays him: https://youtu.be/QVXfcIb3OKo?si=lGXu0K90vkC2lvh4&t=867 And qobuz pays him 0.0136$ per stream...
And qobuz pays him 0.0136$ per stream instead of 0.0029$ for spotify.
But you may use another one service in the list which pays a bit more per stream, after all deezer is still x3 more pay per stream.
If the speakers have an aux input, the open source reverse-engineered AirPlay ecosystem is quite robust. You can set up a few Pi’s (or maybe even ESP32’s, haven’t checked) around the house and...
If the speakers have an aux input, the open source reverse-engineered AirPlay ecosystem is quite robust. You can set up a few Pi’s (or maybe even ESP32’s, haven’t checked) around the house and stream to them with both Apple devices as well as open source AirPlay implementations for Android, Windows, and Linux. There’s also the option of buying several used AirPort Express units for the job, which are cheap on eBay and still supported as streaming targets.
Without aux inputs things get a lot more spotty since the speakers themselves need to support whatever proprietary protocol the streaming services use, and smaller services probably aren’t going to pay companies to implement said integrations.
I also made this switch after being a paying Spotify user since the very first day it became available in the US. It took me a couple weeks to get used to, but now I am happy I did. No more...
Also happily switched to Apple Music. It is basic but it does no more than it needs to.
I also made this switch after being a paying Spotify user since the very first day it became available in the US.
It took me a couple weeks to get used to, but now I am happy I did. No more skipping past podcasts or audiobooks. No more paying more money for those same features I don't want. I was able to upload old albums that I've ripped from CDs that aren't available to stream and sync those across devices. And I get lossless audio out of the box (also without any additional subscription fees - which is what I expect Spotify to do if/when they actually get lossless audio).
Apple isn't perfect by any means, but I think they just get how these services should be separated to be a better overall experience.
After switching away from Spotify to self-hosting my own Jellyfin server (which I really love!) the one thing I miss is collaborative playlists. I used to love making a playlist with friends, or...
After switching away from Spotify to self-hosting my own Jellyfin server (which I really love!) the one thing I miss is collaborative playlists. I used to love making a playlist with friends, or following the playlists created by my friends. And I like to think other people enjoyed following my playlists, though I don't know if anyone actually bothered. It was pretty nice to find fan-created soundtrack playlists of TV shows and movies that never actually released a soundtrack, too.
It's sad to think that tens of millions of people paying $10+ per month just isn't enough money for modern tech. Gotta datamine, gotta enshittify, gotta extract more, I guess. Spotify's involvement in the podcast and audiobook businesses, forced un-toggleable data-chugging video content, and scummy treatment of artists has killed what ought to have been one of the most sustainable tech companies out there.
Something you're missing here is that what truly killed that dream was music labels' predatory contracts slurping up the majority of its gross profit; spotify never had a profitable year until...
Spotify's involvement in the podcast and audiobook businesses, forced un-toggleable data-chugging video content, and scummy treatment of artists has killed what ought to have been one of the most sustainable tech companies out there.
Something you're missing here is that what truly killed that dream was music labels' predatory contracts slurping up the majority of its gross profit; spotify never had a profitable year until 2024. As far as I'm aware, they got in the podcast and audiobook business in order to diversify their portfolio, no?
I’m not about to give the record companies a break because they don’t deserve one in the least, but Spotify is absolutely at fault here too. They likely could’ve been profitable years ago if...
I’m not about to give the record companies a break because they don’t deserve one in the least, but Spotify is absolutely at fault here too. They likely could’ve been profitable years ago if profitability were the focus, but it’s clearly not been, because their actions have painted a clear picture that they’re much more concerned with dominance of all things audio.
From what’s visible externally, their corporate structure isn’t built for efficient effectiveness, either. It looks much more like a Facebook or Amazon type operation than it does a pre-acquisition WhatsApp one.
You're right, that's also a very good point. I'm not qualified to make any predictions regarding their profitability had they taken alternate routes, but the general trend suggested in your...
You're right, that's also a very good point. I'm not qualified to make any predictions regarding their profitability had they taken alternate routes, but the general trend suggested in your comment sounds realistic enough.
I absolutely agree with your sentiment toward Spotify, but you can definitely toggle the per-song videos off (if that's what you're referring to), at least on Android. I hate that feature and have...
forced un-toggleable data-chugging video content
I absolutely agree with your sentiment toward Spotify, but you can definitely toggle the per-song videos off (if that's what you're referring to), at least on Android. I hate that feature and have had it turned off for a long time.
Edit: For me on Android, it's Settings > Content and Display > Canvas
Side note, can you explain what you mean with Jellyfin? I thought it was a service like Plex? Did you download music to your PC and then stream it places like your phone with Jellyfin?
Side note, can you explain what you mean with Jellyfin? I thought it was a service like Plex? Did you download music to your PC and then stream it places like your phone with Jellyfin?
I host an always-on VPN server from a Raspberry Pi at home. I forward a port for the VPN. Whenever I'm away from home, my devices automatically connect to the VPN. As long as I'm on my network...
I host an always-on VPN server from a Raspberry Pi at home. I forward a port for the VPN. Whenever I'm away from home, my devices automatically connect to the VPN. As long as I'm on my network (physically or virtually via the VPN) I have access to my full music library, which is also hosted on the Raspberry Pi server at home. Not bad for a dollar of electricity a month (worst case) and a $100 investment. I had a lot of CDs lying around at relatives' houses, and I'll also admit that if I own an album on vinyl I'm not strongly opposed to... getting my hands on a FLAC copy.
Yes, that's what I do with Plex, mainly through the Plexamp app on iOS and sometimes with the web app in a browser. I have a Spotify subscription for my family that is also my daily driver, but I...
Yes, that's what I do with Plex, mainly through the Plexamp app on iOS and sometimes with the web app in a browser. I have a Spotify subscription for my family that is also my daily driver, but I still download a fair bit of music to my server. Stuff that's either not on Spotify at all (rarities, live shows, music subject to licensing disputes, etc.) or releases from my fave artists that I wouldn't want to lose in a worst case scenario where Spotify bites the dust.
Reading comments on Tildes always makes me realize that folks on here have no idea what anyone under 40 actually wants and likes. For many people, music is a social experience. DMs shorten/reduce...
Exemplary
Reading comments on Tildes always makes me realize that folks on here have no idea what anyone under 40 actually wants and likes. For many people, music is a social experience. DMs shorten/reduce the social distance/friction between friends' music activity and replying to it.
Spotify isn't losing the plot. Spotify keeps growing because it's the fun place to be to discover and—more importantly—play with media.
Except for all of the people here who are under 40? I’d be willing to bet that Tildes skews older than other places online, but there are plenty of people here in their 20s and 30s. Some of us...
folks on here have no idea what anyone under 40 actually wants and likes
Except for all of the people here who are under 40? I’d be willing to bet that Tildes skews older than other places online, but there are plenty of people here in their 20s and 30s.
Some of us just have no interest in “playing” with media in that way. I neither need nor want to respond to (or even know) what my friends are listening to in the moment.
You can be under 40 and broadly "have no idea what anyone under 40 actually wants and likes". There's nothing wrong with having preferences, but sometimes people get caught up in a bubble and...
You can be under 40 and broadly "have no idea what anyone under 40 actually wants and likes". There's nothing wrong with having preferences, but sometimes people get caught up in a bubble and assume that everyone has their preferences, and are unable to see how anyone could have anything but their preferences.
But the vast majority of people are interested in playing with media and using it as a vehicle for self-expression and social connection. Every new year, Spotify Wrappeds dominate feeds. Many...
But the vast majority of people are interested in playing with media and using it as a vehicle for self-expression and social connection. Every new year, Spotify Wrappeds dominate feeds. Many people are jamming together, sharing clips, and generating playlists with friends based on overlapping music interests or solo generating playlists for moods. Spotify is a super fun music platform. People love it and for good reason. I just find it interesting that many folks on Tildes are not interested in trying to understand why people love it, even though there are so many other streaming services and there's no moat: it's super easy to transfer playlists. They're so focused on this very narrow definition of what a music player should be.
I find it incredibly cranky and giving Simpsons old man shouts at cloud or Principal Skinner's no, it's the children who are wrong energy, and it's a missed opportunity to understand what people want from media.
Spotify have something of a moat in the form of a generous free ad-supported plan. There’s a couple of other services that do that too but impose more limits and don’t have as much brand appeal. I...
Spotify have something of a moat in the form of a generous free ad-supported plan. There’s a couple of other services that do that too but impose more limits and don’t have as much brand appeal.
I won’t deny the possibility of a disconnect, though.
As a millennial music was something of a social thing for me too when I was younger, but came in the form of AIM status messages, hacks to allow friends to access my shared iTunes library over the internet, or just “hey check out this album <link>” which was more one-way in nature and has no algorithmic component. I don’t see as much appeal in Spotify style social features (aside from Rewind) because friends likely have different tastes that could really mess up my recommended feed. “Music social network” also summons up memories of failed attempts like Apple’s Ping for a lot of us which probably doesn’t help matters.
That is quite dismissive. My brain did not suddenly implode when I turned 40. I have been using online messaging since before the internet and I always adapted. I used everything, I still use...
That is quite dismissive. My brain did not suddenly implode when I turned 40. I have been using online messaging since before the internet and I always adapted. I used everything, I still use everything. I probably chat, on a daily basis, with more young people online than most young people do.
Do you really think anyone thinks music is not a social experience?
Spotify already integrates with Discord.
Young people are well versed in so many internet messaging apps already that they're probably the least likely to adopt this ridiculous idea.
To clarify the post you are replying to says nothing about the thoughts of people over 40. It is about what people here in general the market of people under 40 are interested in. If Spotify is...
To clarify the post you are replying to says nothing about the thoughts of people over 40. It is about what people here in general the market of people under 40 are interested in.
If Spotify is integrated with discord it has a lot of data on how popular discord is. It seems reasonable they would like to cut out a third party platform and offer their own solution.
I suppose that could be true. I'm in my 30s. One reason I'm on Spotify is that more of my friends are — but they also do not care for the existing social features like Blend or Jam (which sorta...
I suppose that could be true. I'm in my 30s. One reason I'm on Spotify is that more of my friends are — but they also do not care for the existing social features like Blend or Jam (which sorta bums me out), so I don't think DMs will take off in my circle, either. Most just want you to send links to where they already check messages.
Aside: I wish I could permanently turn off audiobooks and podcasts in Spotify. I never ever ever want to see or listen to them.
I’m in my 30s and have been a Spotify user for years. I think a point that @EgoEimi might be missing is that when you’re <30 you have much more time for hobbies and socialization. My friends in my...
I’m in my 30s and have been a Spotify user for years. I think a point that @EgoEimi might be missing is that when you’re <30 you have much more time for hobbies and socialization. My friends in my generation are all having kids, or hitting peaks in their career, so free time is a precious resource. We chat still, but we aren’t discovering music the same way we once were / at all.
I’m a musician myself, so I love talking about and sharing music, but it’s just not an activity I really do online anymore (even with my musician friends!). While Spotify may be tapping into the Gen Z/Alpha cultural zeitgeist by enabling DMs, I don’t think they need to bother inserting themselves into Millennial/Gen X lives to keep them as subscribers at this point…we’re already there and are becoming (/already are) averse to change in our Internet experience.
The interesting thing about millennials becoming averse to change is that I’m not sure it’s the same phenomenon as the usual change averseness that comes with age. I think it’s driven more by a...
The interesting thing about millennials becoming averse to change is that I’m not sure it’s the same phenomenon as the usual change averseness that comes with age. I think it’s driven more by a distrust and tiredness that’s developed as more and more of what was once good about technology has been stripped and replaced with an endless precession of gimmicky features designed not to useful, but instead to harvest data and entrap users.
It’s easy to see how someone who’s lived through most of the internet’s character arc might have a knee jerk reaction to things like Spotify gaining social features. It looks and smells a lot like the same sort of thing as a few years back when suddenly everything had a “stories” feature stapled onto it, whether it needed it or not.
I am older and I like this idea. It'll be nice to have a music-focused chat with a few friends, where those links / tracks don't get smothered by a proper conversation.
I am older and I like this idea. It'll be nice to have a music-focused chat with a few friends, where those links / tracks don't get smothered by a proper conversation.
I'm not under 40 and even having been a Spotify user in the past, I wouldn't want to use this nor do I know anyone who does. If I want to have a social experience involving music on the Internet,...
I'm not under 40 and even having been a Spotify user in the past, I wouldn't want to use this nor do I know anyone who does. If I want to have a social experience involving music on the Internet, I simply share it using any other means I have of communicating with my friends or strangers.
What sort of social experience is just adding DMs going to provide, anyway? How would you meet anyone this way, and who are you going to add as a friend on Spotify that you don't have another, better means of communication to talk with? If they were adding a forum or some form of public feed, maybe I could see it.
I think their point is that if you're not under 40 this isn't what you'd be looking for anyway. I also don't think Tildes users, even under 40, are representative given we have deliberately...
I think their point is that if you're not under 40 this isn't what you'd be looking for anyway. I also don't think Tildes users, even under 40, are representative given we have deliberately requested a text only, invite only forum.
The percentage of, say, Tiktok users here is fairly small it seems. What about Snapchat? Instagram? All of which have integrated messaging while letting people share videos and pictures (and songs associated with them) via DM. Add your friends from your other socials, scan my QR code and send me your playlist. I'm not interested but I get why they're trying it.
Sometimes it's not the company that's wrong it's just that we're not the target market. How many youth use the word "enshittification" basically daily (tbh it's in semantic saturation for me now, I loathe it )?
I suppose I just don't see the utility of a social media site that leans so heavily on its music catalog when you can share music on other platforms already. It feels to me like attempt to be "the...
All of which have integrated messaging while letting people share videos and pictures (and songs associated with them) via DM.
I suppose I just don't see the utility of a social media site that leans so heavily on its music catalog when you can share music on other platforms already. It feels to me like attempt to be "the Facebook of music" or something similar from a decade ago.
I think that's leaning into too rigid of terms. Honestly, I don't think it's useful to view this in the frame of "social media". The reality is that a lot of people on Spotify engage with each...
I think that's leaning into too rigid of terms. Honestly, I don't think it's useful to view this in the frame of "social media".
The reality is that a lot of people on Spotify engage with each other. They go into Spotify Jams together, they see their friends activity, and so forth.
An analogy people on this site may better understand is Steam. Is Steam a "social media"? Kinda, but I don't think it's trying to be the "Facebook of Gaming" either (if nothing else, it predates Facebook).
Steam has a bunch of social features for no more complicated a reason than a lot of people play games together and talk about the games they play with each other.
Similarly, Spotify is trending towards having more social features because people listen to music together and enjoy talking about the music they like with each other.
Apologies. I freely admit that I might be massively wrong and Spotify is holding some sort of high card here. I don't see it, but I also let my Spotify subscription lapse years ago for YouTube...
I think that's leaning into too rigid of terms.
Apologies. I freely admit that I might be massively wrong and Spotify is holding some sort of high card here. I don't see it, but I also let my Spotify subscription lapse years ago for YouTube Premium, so I don't have a ton of skin in the game either.
An analogy people on this site may better understand is Steam. Is Steam a "social media"? Kinda, but I don't think it's trying to be the "Facebook of Gaming" either (if nothing else, it predates Facebook).
That's an interesting comparison. In my experience, Steam used to be a lot more active, but Discord seems to have stolen a lot of Steam's thunder from a social media point of view. The activity of my PSN and Xbox Live friendgroups also fell off a cliff around the same time.
My hunch is that Discord did this by offering a more widely accessible and flexible product that didn't hyper-focus on one specific platform. If we're analogizing, this would make Spotify more similar to Steam/XBL/PSN's position than Discord's.
It took some of Steam's thunder, but if Steam announced tomorrow that they're deleting the chat, they're deleting the forums, they're deleting friends, and they're going to be a pure game...
It took some of Steam's thunder, but if Steam announced tomorrow that they're deleting the chat, they're deleting the forums, they're deleting friends, and they're going to be a pure game storefront that just sells and launches games - how do you think people will react, in general? Will they be like "Great! I don't care" or would there be an uproar? I think the latter. These are still features that people use.
I don't think Spotify has any intentions of being the new facebook. They're just reducing the friction required to listen to music socially, something their userbase wants to do. And by reducing friction, more people will spotify for longer - and find it more difficult to swap to a pure music service like Apple Music.
Sure and that's fair, I'm almost certainly not using it either, but like I said, we as a Tildes population aren't representative of the general public by any means and even if we do have members...
Sure and that's fair, I'm almost certainly not using it either, but like I said, we as a Tildes population aren't representative of the general public by any means and even if we do have members of the target demo, nothing is adopted by everyone.
I have no interest in the idea. But I can see why others might want it. Tiktok basically functions as a dedicated video sharing chat for a friend and I. I have real conversations with them in other ways. I can see the appeal for someone really into music where it's easier to return to, to add to your playlist, etc.
Sure, I'm open to the idea that I could be massively wrong and Spotify is holding some sort of high card that would cause it to be the hip new place to hang out. I don't see it, but I also have no...
Sure, I'm open to the idea that I could be massively wrong and Spotify is holding some sort of high card that would cause it to be the hip new place to hang out.
I don't see it, but I also have no skin in the game. We shall see.
When I was under 40 and Spotify was new, I tried it for a week and decided I didn't like it enough to keep it (bad customer experience, and my favourite fresh music wasn't on there). Later I heard...
Reading comments on Tildes always makes me realize that folks on here have no idea what anyone under 40 actually wants and likes.
When I was under 40 and Spotify was new, I tried it for a week and decided I didn't like it enough to keep it (bad customer experience, and my favourite fresh music wasn't on there). Later I heard artists weren't even being paid fairly and patted myself on the back. Today, based on what I've read, I would like it even less than I did back then.
Soundcloud was nice for a while. NTS Radio might be my next go-to.
Music is only one part of a larger social experience. When I want to share my music, I post a link to it in the group chat or #music channel of an existing social media site. This is a not-just-me...
Music is only one part of a larger social experience. When I want to share my music, I post a link to it in the group chat or #music channel of an existing social media site. This is a not-just-me observation, this is how I see music engaged with in social places on the internet in general.
I can't imagine the need for a social network that is centered around music, it has a real "The Facebook of <blank>" energy from a decade ago. Either give us the API's that allow us to surface this on other platforms (which is already possible) or I suppose nobody will know what I'm listening to at a particular moment, which gets a shrug and an "Oh Well" from me.
Why? What's the actual use case here? You have a crazy strong dominance in the audio streaming market. People share your playlist links on other platforms that you don't have to maintain and...
Why? What's the actual use case here? You have a crazy strong dominance in the audio streaming market. People share your playlist links on other platforms that you don't have to maintain and monitor. The advertising does itself at that point!
I don't understand the desire to constantly try and bring more people permanently on to your platform. Music is where you started, podcasts and audio books make sense, they are extentions of music. Algorithms to help pick your playlists also make sense, even if they aren't that great. You start losing me when you start doing video on podcast. But now i wonder, where does becoming a social media platform fit in to all of this? Why must we insist on making everything a one-stop-shop for everything I do? They are going to find that moderating these platforms is difficult at best and AI can only take you so far.
At the very minimum, I won't be using it and have no desire to ever use it.
So they're not end-to-end encrypted if Spotify is scanning the messages and it's probably more for Spotify to track what users share in a single place rather than for users to have a single place...
The feature aims to consolidate content recommendations that already happen over texts, social media, and third-party messaging services into a single location where Spotify users can more easily track their shared content.
Spotify says the user-to-user messages are 1:1, support text conversations and emoji reactions, and are protected by “industry-standard encryption”.
Users can choose to accept or reject message requests, block other users, or opt out of Messages entirely. Users can also report any shared content and text messages, or the account that sent them, by holding down on the message to flag anything nefarious. Spotify says it will proactively scan Messages for “certain unlawful and harmful content” and review chats that get reported by users.
So they're not end-to-end encrypted if Spotify is scanning the messages and it's probably more for Spotify to track what users share in a single place rather than for users to have a single place to share Spotify recommendations. It seems like a way for them to get more data on users rather than anything else. What are the chances they also use these for better ad targeting, considering they're also rolling this out to free users?
Any arrangement where the message carrier can decrypt and read the message themselves before it reaches the intended recipient is by definition not end-to-end encryption.
Any arrangement where the message carrier can decrypt and read the message themselves before it reaches the intended recipient is by definition not end-to-end encryption.
Just to add, @nastharl, connections between client and server are effectively always encrypted in everything you use through TLS (e.g. what makes up the S in HTTPS)
Just to add, @nastharl, connections between client and server are effectively always encrypted in everything you use through TLS (e.g. what makes up the S in HTTPS)
This feels like a great feature! I know a lot of my friends already use Spotify in a very social way - they see each other's favorites, have collaborative playlists, and so forth. I see this as...
This feels like a great feature! I know a lot of my friends already use Spotify in a very social way - they see each other's favorites, have collaborative playlists, and so forth.
I see this as very similar to, say, Steam chat. Does steam's chat replace WhatsApp or iMessage or Discord? Not really. But it's still handy to have. It means you don't need to go in a round-a-bout way through a different chat service, and things can be embedded into the chat. E.g, when someone invites you to a game, it's embedded as a button in steam chat.
Steam's chat feature was integral to what the service was aiming to be back in 2003, though. Steam's chat has not been in competition with these other services, it was around before any of them...
Steam's chat feature was integral to what the service was aiming to be back in 2003, though. Steam's chat has not been in competition with these other services, it was around before any of them existed. It came about long before social media existed as a concept, back when the only other alternatives to chats were forums and IRC. It competed with Xfire, not MSN and Skype and IRC. The chat feature predates even the Steam profiles and other social aspects of Steam.
Spotify adding DM features years down the line as a music streaming service is very different in terms of purpose and utility.
It doesn’t really change the utility. It’s nice to be able to talk to other people directly in the platform. Especially when you don’t need to be all that close. I know people with followers in...
It doesn’t really change the utility. It’s nice to be able to talk to other people directly in the platform. Especially when you don’t need to be all that close. I know people with followers in Spotify who just follow them for their music taste. They currently can’t communicate at all, since they’re not otherwise friends on other comms platform.
It’s long overdue but nice to see Spotify add a chat feature finally.
Same, I'm really excited about this too. I have one friend in particular who I'm constantly sharing music with, and it's a pain to send him Spotify links; when I send it via Gchat (or whatever),...
Same, I'm really excited about this too. I have one friend in particular who I'm constantly sharing music with, and it's a pain to send him Spotify links; when I send it via Gchat (or whatever), the song starts playing when he clicks it which interrupts his current playlist. That means he won't listen to it when I send it, but he'll "get around to it."
A simple fix would be "OK then don't play the song when the link is tapped/clicked," and honestly I wish that was the default behavior, but I think a proper DM in the app is better. I've lost track of the music we've recommended to each other because it's spread between multiple messaging apps. Keeping this data in Spotify can also help tune the algorithms to our tastes more. That's pretty cool
This used to be a feature, way back in the day. I'm gonna say ~2011-2014. I actually used it quite a bit because it was much easier to share songs within Spotify itself rather than having to go...
This used to be a feature, way back in the day. I'm gonna say ~2011-2014. I actually used it quite a bit because it was much easier to share songs within Spotify itself rather than having to go outside the platform. I didn't hate it back in the day.
This is actually really frustrating if there isn’t a way to disable it behind a passcode or something. Without going into details, my younger brother is incredibly vulnerable to scams, and after...
This is actually really frustrating if there isn’t a way to disable it behind a passcode or something.
Without going into details, my younger brother is incredibly vulnerable to scams, and after the most recent blowout, we’ve locked down his phone (with his support) to significantly reduce his exposure to contact with random people who may exploit him in future. Spotify is one of the few apps his phone can have at the moment, and it sounds like even this might need to be revisited in future if it allows anyone to message him.
I really wish companies would stay in their own lanes sometimes...
It doesn't matter. Someone will pester you to activate it or criticize you for not doing so. I recently started using YT Music through my family YouTube Premium subscription. If you use all the...
It doesn't matter. Someone will pester you to activate it or criticize you for not doing so. I recently started using YT Music through my family YouTube Premium subscription. If you use all the spots in the plan it is reasonably priced. I suppose it also has its issues but right now I have barely any reason to keep Spotify anymore.
I can’t imagine someone I actually want to talk with caring so deeply about being able to message me on Spotify specifically vs one of the many dedicated messaging platforms.
It doesn't matter. Someone will pester you to activate it or criticize you for not doing so.
I can’t imagine someone I actually want to talk with caring so deeply about being able to message me on Spotify specifically vs one of the many dedicated messaging platforms.
Maybe I'm old, but I just don't see the point in social-mediatizing everything. I know Spotify has some social media integration and has for a long time (via Facebook I think), but as far as I can...
Maybe I'm old, but I just don't see the point in social-mediatizing everything. I know Spotify has some social media integration and has for a long time (via Facebook I think), but as far as I can tell, it's been pretty diminished over time. I had to open Spotify and take a look to see where the "friends" list was. Or rather, if it was still there. It is, but clearly I haven't touched it in like...10yrs?
Like I get that people share music with each other. I share music with my brother, my family, and my friends, all via Discord where we're all already at. And it's easy to do, either on mobile or on desktop. I don't want another platform that I have to monitor.
Not that new social medias can't be made. TikTok came to the game pretty late after all. But I just can't see that many people using this. Feel like this is just going to be Google+ all over again. I suppose it doesn't hurt current users for them to add this. But I for one won't be using it.
I wish they finally delivered on lossless audio like they were talking about a few years ago and never actually did. I don’t see the point of this messaging app either. Virtually any alternative...
I wish they finally delivered on lossless audio like they were talking about a few years ago and never actually did. I don’t see the point of this messaging app either. Virtually any alternative is better suited to the task!
Lossless would be the only thing that would make me consider switching from Apple Music. Since I’m on the Apple platform (with many family leeches) I’m kinda stuck paying anyway, tho I have used...
Lossless would be the only thing that would make me consider switching from Apple Music. Since I’m on the Apple platform (with many family leeches) I’m kinda stuck paying anyway, tho I have used Spotify years ago and it did feel like it’s got a better algorithm.
I don’t know how Apple Music is but Spotify algorithm is very mediocre. They also insist on keeping you from banning titles/artists that you hate platform wide. You can only do it per playlist (so...
I don’t know how Apple Music is but Spotify algorithm is very mediocre.
They also insist on keeping you from banning titles/artists that you hate platform wide. You can only do it per playlist (so idiotic). And they have a metadata problem where they’ll lump all songs by homonyms as songs by the same artist. For instance Rodriguez is mostly the Rodriguez you expect except one shitty dance high beat song that will randomly play in the middle of playing other regular Rodriguez songs (which are a very different and much calmer style, they don’t even compare with one another). And that’s a regular occurrence on Spotify.
I’m only sticking around because I have a cheap family account that I pay polish price for (which is something like a third of my country’s price) but every month I’m reevaluating my laziness to switch. Maybe this time I’ve had enough and will put in the effort to get an Argentinian Tidal or wherever the decent family plan price is.
Thanks for sharing that. I didn’t know about those issues. Is it the same on Apple? Hmm… I don’t know. I might not be using it enough in a way that would allow me to see the issues. I very much...
Thanks for sharing that. I didn’t know about those issues. Is it the same on Apple? Hmm… I don’t know. I might not be using it enough in a way that would allow me to see the issues. I very much treat it almost like my old mp3 player. I search for what I want and add the entire album to my collection, and separately, I add individual songs to playlists only (and not to the collection). This way my library is either full albums, or playlists. No singles or random 1 song albums. I don’t use the algorithm much.
When I used Spotify several years back it was still “new”(ish) and Apple Music wasn’t even a thing yet or it was far behind. I recall back then the algorithm for discovering similar things felt good.
It's great that all these companies are more than happy to open up more avenues for scammers. DMs turn into cam girl or crypto grift delivery pipelines as soon as they are stood up. Hope they're...
It's great that all these companies are more than happy to open up more avenues for scammers. DMs turn into cam girl or crypto grift delivery pipelines as soon as they are stood up.
Hope they're building good blocking and reporting tools....
Am I taking crazy pills? Wasn't this a feature in Spotify like 10 years ago that they discontinued because no one was using it? I guess online habits have changed, especially for the younger...
Am I taking crazy pills? Wasn't this a feature in Spotify like 10 years ago that they discontinued because no one was using it? I guess online habits have changed, especially for the younger generation that is now using the platform.
You could just not use the feature like all the other features you don't use. I don't listen to podcasts at all so I just ignore them on Spotify, no big deal. People complain you can't remove them...
You could just not use the feature like all the other features you don't use. I don't listen to podcasts at all so I just ignore them on Spotify, no big deal. People complain you can't remove them from the main page, which I agree should be controllable by the user but it turns out I never look at the main page, so really I don't even see them very much. Probably going to be the same thing with this, I already have all the social stuff turned off in my Spotify.
I just switched to YouTube Music. I'm on YouTube anyway so it makes sense for me to pay $13 and get no ads, support my favorite creators, and get an experience from a company that isn't making up...
I just switched to YouTube Music. I'm on YouTube anyway so it makes sense for me to pay $13 and get no ads, support my favorite creators, and get an experience from a company that isn't making up artists to distract from real ones.
That is so ridiculous. I am baffled. I don't want the anxiety of social interaction injected in my music playing app. I don't want an additional app for people to send me messages I don't wanna...
That is so ridiculous. I am baffled. I don't want the anxiety of social interaction injected in my music playing app. I don't want an additional app for people to send me messages I don't wanna answer, I don't wanna have to deal with their judgement. I don't wanna have an argument because I didn't answer to my mother's message in a timely fashion. On fucking Spotity.
They have recently vowed to put in mandatory age verification checks in light of the UK's Online Safety Act. I wonder if these features were meant to be a means to justify that.
They have recently vowed to put in mandatory age verification checks in light of the UK's Online Safety Act. I wonder if these features were meant to be a means to justify that.
I'm gonna lean on the side of Hanlon's razor for this, there's already plenty of explicit music and podcasts that they could use to justify the age verification. This is just a dumb feature.
I'm gonna lean on the side of Hanlon's razor for this, there's already plenty of explicit music and podcasts that they could use to justify the age verification. This is just a dumb feature.
I wonder if this is another side effect of AI being so prevalent. The cost for companies to add slop to their apps is now even more minimized. Why not create DMing when it only took 1 hour of...
I wonder if this is another side effect of AI being so prevalent. The cost for companies to add slop to their apps is now even more minimized. Why not create DMing when it only took 1 hour of their devs work? More standards, more nonsense that gets dripped down everywhere
I have come from the future to tell you that there's a toggle that disables the messages feature in the settings (settings > privacy & social > social features > messaging). At least in the EU. It...
I have come from the future to tell you that there's a toggle that disables the messages feature in the settings (settings > privacy & social > social features > messaging). At least in the EU.
It also appears you need to explicitly invite someone to chat with you via a link.
I can't imagine anyone wants this. Sharing music using links already works fine, and I don't really fancy having another conversation in another app to keep track of. And, seriously, what even is Spotify anymore? Is it music streaming? Podcasts? Audiobooks? A social network? A messaging app? They must've completely lost the plot.
I don't even like their focus on playlists, myself. Switched to Apple Music years ago, and am much happier with how that service puts the music front and centre, not itself.
It is jus the inevitable way things go for successful tech companies that have a thousand engineers that need “something” to do and share holders want infinite growth. In my opinion, music streaming is pretty much a solved problem. I would be happy if they will just keep up with new releases and make it easy to see new releases from my favorite artists. But of course that isn’t enough for the “number must go up” people. Also happily switched to Apple Music. It is basic but it does no more than it needs to.
This is why I really hate the idea of companies being "tech companies". There are very few companies in this world who should be called "tech companies" and the vast majority of them are the boring ones who are contracted to write enterprise code and maintain networked appliances. Netflix, Uber, Spotify, and other companies like them are all service companies. They don't make money on writing the software, they make money on providing the service. In the meanwhile it's getting hard to find places where I don't hear people complaining about tech being involved in places where it's not needed or wanted.
It makes me wonder if a new competitor that’s bootstrapped (zero VC funding) and intentionally lean and focused on providing a great service with stellar apps (let’s be honest, it wouldn’t be hard to do better than Spotify here) wouldn’t be able to support itself with word of mouth alone. I think people are getting tired of the endless creep of growth obsessed companies like Spotify.
I think the struggle in this space is the licensing costs required to provide a competing service. If you didn't basically invent the service model (Spotify) or have massive amounts of cash to get going (Apple, Tidal, YouTube, etc.) I don't think you can break in. Bandcamp might be the closest we have to that, and they still have corporate masters and you have to individually pay for anything you want to stream in their app (I know you can stream a lot of things from their website but to use their app like any other streaming music service you do need to pay for the songs or albums first).
A small service would probably need to charge more, but I believe that there’d be a userbase willing to pay the premium if the service and its apps were legitimately good instead of just passable.
I don't think the solution to a product getting worse because of growth incentives is another product from another company. Any replacement will have the same incentives to do the same thing (if the company does well). If Spotify's changes bother you, I think you have to avoid paying for products like it in the first place.
I think the real competitor is buying (and/or pirating) music and playing those files.
Not every company has similar growth incentives.
An example from the personal knowledge management space is Obsidian, a direct competitor to Notion and other similar apps/services. Obsidian is free of charge except for the features that cost them money to run (sync, publish). They do have paid licenses for those who wish to pay, but it isn't required. There's no proprietary file format, no account needed to use it, the files are local. Essentially no vendor lock-in of any kind.
They have a small team (less than ten people IIRC) so they don't need an immense turnover to keep going, and they're not hungry for exponential growth.
Bending Spoons - an EU based tech company that specialises in buying small businesses with loyal user bases and enshittifying them to oblivion - tried to buy Obsidian last year. Obsidian's CEO asked them if it would be okay to post the email online to gauge user response. When he posted it, he added a remark explaining that the team has permission to send such emails directly to trash, without even mentioning it to their colleagues, and that Obsidian was not even considering the offer.
I'd love to see similar businesses pop up in other areas. The relief I felt when I found Obsidian was immense and made me realise how much modern tech is likely contributing to people's overall stress and mental health problems.
Great example. The tech world would be so much better off if a larger slice were composed of little lean companies like Obsidian.
I don’t agree that incentives will be the same between companies. There’s lots of small to medium sized privately held companies that try for sustainability and are happy as long as they stay in the black and can keep the lights on. They just don’t make much noise because they’re not pulling headline-bait stunts and are quietly puttering along doing their thing.
Keeping files locally is a good option for those with an inkling of technical inclination. I’ve purchased a handful of CDs and Bandcamp tracks for things I like and listen to often because none of that is a stranger to me, having maintained a music library through the iPod era. Streaming music is a mass consumer product however and a huge percentage of users wouldn’t know where to start if they wanted to do it themselves.
So, my thought is that there is a place for a more ethical, sustainable streaming music service. Private ownership might be enough to keep it un-enshittified at least as long as its leadership stays in place, but perhaps a user-and-artist-owned model like Subvert is attempting may be a better fit in the long run.
Tidal already exists and it is pretty much just a music streaming service. It has its userbase but I don’t see it blowing up any time soon.
Its app is pretty mediocre, though, which seems to be a commonality between all of them.
This isn’t unavoidable however as proven by the numerous clients for self-hosted streaming services that are much better. It comes down to poor choices in technologies and development practices, treating client apps as line items to check off instead of the core product experiences they are.
Honestly I'd love to be able to move to another music streaming platform as I do dislike a lot of Spotify's moves over the last several years, + sadly downloading all my music and/or sailing the high seas isn't really feasible for me for a multitude of reasons. Sadly though, there's no other music streaming platform meeting all of my 5-6 basic criteria, which makes me have to put up with spotify for the time being
I had quboz recommended to me, but I’ve not tried it personally because I need smart speaker integration, which it doesn’t have
It may be because of the video Benn Jordan did on what amount per stream each services pays him: https://youtu.be/QVXfcIb3OKo?si=lGXu0K90vkC2lvh4&t=867
And qobuz pays him 0.0136$ per stream instead of 0.0029$ for spotify.
But you may use another one service in the list which pays a bit more per stream, after all deezer is still x3 more pay per stream.
If the speakers have an aux input, the open source reverse-engineered AirPlay ecosystem is quite robust. You can set up a few Pi’s (or maybe even ESP32’s, haven’t checked) around the house and stream to them with both Apple devices as well as open source AirPlay implementations for Android, Windows, and Linux. There’s also the option of buying several used AirPort Express units for the job, which are cheap on eBay and still supported as streaming targets.
Without aux inputs things get a lot more spotty since the speakers themselves need to support whatever proprietary protocol the streaming services use, and smaller services probably aren’t going to pay companies to implement said integrations.
I also made this switch after being a paying Spotify user since the very first day it became available in the US.
It took me a couple weeks to get used to, but now I am happy I did. No more skipping past podcasts or audiobooks. No more paying more money for those same features I don't want. I was able to upload old albums that I've ripped from CDs that aren't available to stream and sync those across devices. And I get lossless audio out of the box (also without any additional subscription fees - which is what I expect Spotify to do if/when they actually get lossless audio).
Apple isn't perfect by any means, but I think they just get how these services should be separated to be a better overall experience.
After switching away from Spotify to self-hosting my own Jellyfin server (which I really love!) the one thing I miss is collaborative playlists. I used to love making a playlist with friends, or following the playlists created by my friends. And I like to think other people enjoyed following my playlists, though I don't know if anyone actually bothered. It was pretty nice to find fan-created soundtrack playlists of TV shows and movies that never actually released a soundtrack, too.
It's sad to think that tens of millions of people paying $10+ per month just isn't enough money for modern tech. Gotta datamine, gotta enshittify, gotta extract more, I guess. Spotify's involvement in the podcast and audiobook businesses, forced un-toggleable data-chugging video content, and scummy treatment of artists has killed what ought to have been one of the most sustainable tech companies out there.
Something you're missing here is that what truly killed that dream was music labels' predatory contracts slurping up the majority of its gross profit; spotify never had a profitable year until 2024. As far as I'm aware, they got in the podcast and audiobook business in order to diversify their portfolio, no?
I’m not about to give the record companies a break because they don’t deserve one in the least, but Spotify is absolutely at fault here too. They likely could’ve been profitable years ago if profitability were the focus, but it’s clearly not been, because their actions have painted a clear picture that they’re much more concerned with dominance of all things audio.
From what’s visible externally, their corporate structure isn’t built for efficient effectiveness, either. It looks much more like a Facebook or Amazon type operation than it does a pre-acquisition WhatsApp one.
You're right, that's also a very good point. I'm not qualified to make any predictions regarding their profitability had they taken alternate routes, but the general trend suggested in your comment sounds realistic enough.
I absolutely agree with your sentiment toward Spotify, but you can definitely toggle the per-song videos off (if that's what you're referring to), at least on Android. I hate that feature and have had it turned off for a long time.
Edit: For me on Android, it's Settings > Content and Display > Canvas
Side note, can you explain what you mean with Jellyfin? I thought it was a service like Plex? Did you download music to your PC and then stream it places like your phone with Jellyfin?
I host an always-on VPN server from a Raspberry Pi at home. I forward a port for the VPN. Whenever I'm away from home, my devices automatically connect to the VPN. As long as I'm on my network (physically or virtually via the VPN) I have access to my full music library, which is also hosted on the Raspberry Pi server at home. Not bad for a dollar of electricity a month (worst case) and a $100 investment. I had a lot of CDs lying around at relatives' houses, and I'll also admit that if I own an album on vinyl I'm not strongly opposed to... getting my hands on a FLAC copy.
Yes, that's what I do with Plex, mainly through the Plexamp app on iOS and sometimes with the web app in a browser. I have a Spotify subscription for my family that is also my daily driver, but I still download a fair bit of music to my server. Stuff that's either not on Spotify at all (rarities, live shows, music subject to licensing disputes, etc.) or releases from my fave artists that I wouldn't want to lose in a worst case scenario where Spotify bites the dust.
Reading comments on Tildes always makes me realize that folks on here have no idea what anyone under 40 actually wants and likes. For many people, music is a social experience. DMs shorten/reduce the social distance/friction between friends' music activity and replying to it.
Spotify isn't losing the plot. Spotify keeps growing because it's the fun place to be to discover and—more importantly—play with media.
Except for all of the people here who are under 40? I’d be willing to bet that Tildes skews older than other places online, but there are plenty of people here in their 20s and 30s.
Some of us just have no interest in “playing” with media in that way. I neither need nor want to respond to (or even know) what my friends are listening to in the moment.
You can be under 40 and broadly "have no idea what anyone under 40 actually wants and likes". There's nothing wrong with having preferences, but sometimes people get caught up in a bubble and assume that everyone has their preferences, and are unable to see how anyone could have anything but their preferences.
But the vast majority of people are interested in playing with media and using it as a vehicle for self-expression and social connection. Every new year, Spotify Wrappeds dominate feeds. Many people are jamming together, sharing clips, and generating playlists with friends based on overlapping music interests or solo generating playlists for moods. Spotify is a super fun music platform. People love it and for good reason. I just find it interesting that many folks on Tildes are not interested in trying to understand why people love it, even though there are so many other streaming services and there's no moat: it's super easy to transfer playlists. They're so focused on this very narrow definition of what a music player should be.
I find it incredibly cranky and giving Simpsons old man shouts at cloud or Principal Skinner's no, it's the children who are wrong energy, and it's a missed opportunity to understand what people want from media.
Spotify have something of a moat in the form of a generous free ad-supported plan. There’s a couple of other services that do that too but impose more limits and don’t have as much brand appeal.
I won’t deny the possibility of a disconnect, though.
As a millennial music was something of a social thing for me too when I was younger, but came in the form of AIM status messages, hacks to allow friends to access my shared iTunes library over the internet, or just “hey check out this album <link>” which was more one-way in nature and has no algorithmic component. I don’t see as much appeal in Spotify style social features (aside from Rewind) because friends likely have different tastes that could really mess up my recommended feed. “Music social network” also summons up memories of failed attempts like Apple’s Ping for a lot of us which probably doesn’t help matters.
That is quite dismissive. My brain did not suddenly implode when I turned 40. I have been using online messaging since before the internet and I always adapted. I used everything, I still use everything. I probably chat, on a daily basis, with more young people online than most young people do.
Do you really think anyone thinks music is not a social experience?
Spotify already integrates with Discord.
Young people are well versed in so many internet messaging apps already that they're probably the least likely to adopt this ridiculous idea.
To clarify the post you are replying to says nothing about the thoughts of people over 40. It is about what people here in general the market of people under 40 are interested in.
If Spotify is integrated with discord it has a lot of data on how popular discord is. It seems reasonable they would like to cut out a third party platform and offer their own solution.
The crazy thing is that ~10 years ago Spotify did have this feature. And it was pretty handy to keep in touch with friends I mainly shared music with
I suppose that could be true. I'm in my 30s. One reason I'm on Spotify is that more of my friends are — but they also do not care for the existing social features like Blend or Jam (which sorta bums me out), so I don't think DMs will take off in my circle, either. Most just want you to send links to where they already check messages.
Aside: I wish I could permanently turn off audiobooks and podcasts in Spotify. I never ever ever want to see or listen to them.
I’m in my 30s and have been a Spotify user for years. I think a point that @EgoEimi might be missing is that when you’re <30 you have much more time for hobbies and socialization. My friends in my generation are all having kids, or hitting peaks in their career, so free time is a precious resource. We chat still, but we aren’t discovering music the same way we once were / at all.
I’m a musician myself, so I love talking about and sharing music, but it’s just not an activity I really do online anymore (even with my musician friends!). While Spotify may be tapping into the Gen Z/Alpha cultural zeitgeist by enabling DMs, I don’t think they need to bother inserting themselves into Millennial/Gen X lives to keep them as subscribers at this point…we’re already there and are becoming (/already are) averse to change in our Internet experience.
The interesting thing about millennials becoming averse to change is that I’m not sure it’s the same phenomenon as the usual change averseness that comes with age. I think it’s driven more by a distrust and tiredness that’s developed as more and more of what was once good about technology has been stripped and replaced with an endless precession of gimmicky features designed not to useful, but instead to harvest data and entrap users.
It’s easy to see how someone who’s lived through most of the internet’s character arc might have a knee jerk reaction to things like Spotify gaining social features. It looks and smells a lot like the same sort of thing as a few years back when suddenly everything had a “stories” feature stapled onto it, whether it needed it or not.
I am older and I like this idea. It'll be nice to have a music-focused chat with a few friends, where those links / tracks don't get smothered by a proper conversation.
I guess I'm suddenly a MILF then
I'm not under 40 and even having been a Spotify user in the past, I wouldn't want to use this nor do I know anyone who does. If I want to have a social experience involving music on the Internet, I simply share it using any other means I have of communicating with my friends or strangers.
What sort of social experience is just adding DMs going to provide, anyway? How would you meet anyone this way, and who are you going to add as a friend on Spotify that you don't have another, better means of communication to talk with? If they were adding a forum or some form of public feed, maybe I could see it.
I think their point is that if you're not under 40 this isn't what you'd be looking for anyway. I also don't think Tildes users, even under 40, are representative given we have deliberately requested a text only, invite only forum.
The percentage of, say, Tiktok users here is fairly small it seems. What about Snapchat? Instagram? All of which have integrated messaging while letting people share videos and pictures (and songs associated with them) via DM. Add your friends from your other socials, scan my QR code and send me your playlist. I'm not interested but I get why they're trying it.
Sometimes it's not the company that's wrong it's just that we're not the target market. How many youth use the word "enshittification" basically daily (tbh it's in semantic saturation for me now, I loathe it )?
I suppose I just don't see the utility of a social media site that leans so heavily on its music catalog when you can share music on other platforms already. It feels to me like attempt to be "the Facebook of music" or something similar from a decade ago.
I think that's leaning into too rigid of terms. Honestly, I don't think it's useful to view this in the frame of "social media".
The reality is that a lot of people on Spotify engage with each other. They go into Spotify Jams together, they see their friends activity, and so forth.
An analogy people on this site may better understand is Steam. Is Steam a "social media"? Kinda, but I don't think it's trying to be the "Facebook of Gaming" either (if nothing else, it predates Facebook).
Steam has a bunch of social features for no more complicated a reason than a lot of people play games together and talk about the games they play with each other.
Similarly, Spotify is trending towards having more social features because people listen to music together and enjoy talking about the music they like with each other.
Apologies. I freely admit that I might be massively wrong and Spotify is holding some sort of high card here. I don't see it, but I also let my Spotify subscription lapse years ago for YouTube Premium, so I don't have a ton of skin in the game either.
That's an interesting comparison. In my experience, Steam used to be a lot more active, but Discord seems to have stolen a lot of Steam's thunder from a social media point of view. The activity of my PSN and Xbox Live friendgroups also fell off a cliff around the same time.
My hunch is that Discord did this by offering a more widely accessible and flexible product that didn't hyper-focus on one specific platform. If we're analogizing, this would make Spotify more similar to Steam/XBL/PSN's position than Discord's.
It took some of Steam's thunder, but if Steam announced tomorrow that they're deleting the chat, they're deleting the forums, they're deleting friends, and they're going to be a pure game storefront that just sells and launches games - how do you think people will react, in general? Will they be like "Great! I don't care" or would there be an uproar? I think the latter. These are still features that people use.
I don't think Spotify has any intentions of being the new facebook. They're just reducing the friction required to listen to music socially, something their userbase wants to do. And by reducing friction, more people will spotify for longer - and find it more difficult to swap to a pure music service like Apple Music.
Sure and that's fair, I'm almost certainly not using it either, but like I said, we as a Tildes population aren't representative of the general public by any means and even if we do have members of the target demo, nothing is adopted by everyone.
I have no interest in the idea. But I can see why others might want it. Tiktok basically functions as a dedicated video sharing chat for a friend and I. I have real conversations with them in other ways. I can see the appeal for someone really into music where it's easier to return to, to add to your playlist, etc.
Sure, I'm open to the idea that I could be massively wrong and Spotify is holding some sort of high card that would cause it to be the hip new place to hang out.
I don't see it, but I also have no skin in the game. We shall see.
When I was under 40 and Spotify was new, I tried it for a week and decided I didn't like it enough to keep it (bad customer experience, and my favourite fresh music wasn't on there). Later I heard artists weren't even being paid fairly and patted myself on the back. Today, based on what I've read, I would like it even less than I did back then.
Soundcloud was nice for a while. NTS Radio might be my next go-to.
Music is only one part of a larger social experience. When I want to share my music, I post a link to it in the group chat or
#musicchannel of an existing social media site. This is a not-just-me observation, this is how I see music engaged with in social places on the internet in general.I can't imagine the need for a social network that is centered around music, it has a real "The Facebook of <blank>" energy from a decade ago. Either give us the API's that allow us to surface this on other platforms (which is already possible) or I suppose nobody will know what I'm listening to at a particular moment, which gets a shrug and an "Oh Well" from me.
Sounds like someone's profits have plateaued and they need a way to monetize their already paying customers.
Good luck with that.
Why? What's the actual use case here? You have a crazy strong dominance in the audio streaming market. People share your playlist links on other platforms that you don't have to maintain and monitor. The advertising does itself at that point!
I don't understand the desire to constantly try and bring more people permanently on to your platform. Music is where you started, podcasts and audio books make sense, they are extentions of music. Algorithms to help pick your playlists also make sense, even if they aren't that great. You start losing me when you start doing video on podcast. But now i wonder, where does becoming a social media platform fit in to all of this? Why must we insist on making everything a one-stop-shop for everything I do? They are going to find that moderating these platforms is difficult at best and AI can only take you so far.
At the very minimum, I won't be using it and have no desire to ever use it.
So they're not end-to-end encrypted if Spotify is scanning the messages and it's probably more for Spotify to track what users share in a single place rather than for users to have a single place to share Spotify recommendations. It seems like a way for them to get more data on users rather than anything else. What are the chances they also use these for better ad targeting, considering they're also rolling this out to free users?
They can be end to end encrypted, its just that spotify is one of the ends. On the wire its safe. Which isn't nothing.
Any arrangement where the message carrier can decrypt and read the message themselves before it reaches the intended recipient is by definition not end-to-end encryption.
Just to add, @nastharl, connections between client and server are effectively always encrypted in everything you use through TLS (e.g. what makes up the S in HTTPS)
This feels like a great feature! I know a lot of my friends already use Spotify in a very social way - they see each other's favorites, have collaborative playlists, and so forth.
I see this as very similar to, say, Steam chat. Does steam's chat replace WhatsApp or iMessage or Discord? Not really. But it's still handy to have. It means you don't need to go in a round-a-bout way through a different chat service, and things can be embedded into the chat. E.g, when someone invites you to a game, it's embedded as a button in steam chat.
Steam's chat feature was integral to what the service was aiming to be back in 2003, though. Steam's chat has not been in competition with these other services, it was around before any of them existed. It came about long before social media existed as a concept, back when the only other alternatives to chats were forums and IRC. It competed with Xfire, not MSN and Skype and IRC. The chat feature predates even the Steam profiles and other social aspects of Steam.
Spotify adding DM features years down the line as a music streaming service is very different in terms of purpose and utility.
It doesn’t really change the utility. It’s nice to be able to talk to other people directly in the platform. Especially when you don’t need to be all that close. I know people with followers in Spotify who just follow them for their music taste. They currently can’t communicate at all, since they’re not otherwise friends on other comms platform.
It’s long overdue but nice to see Spotify add a chat feature finally.
Same, I'm really excited about this too. I have one friend in particular who I'm constantly sharing music with, and it's a pain to send him Spotify links; when I send it via Gchat (or whatever), the song starts playing when he clicks it which interrupts his current playlist. That means he won't listen to it when I send it, but he'll "get around to it."
A simple fix would be "OK then don't play the song when the link is tapped/clicked," and honestly I wish that was the default behavior, but I think a proper DM in the app is better. I've lost track of the music we've recommended to each other because it's spread between multiple messaging apps. Keeping this data in Spotify can also help tune the algorithms to our tastes more. That's pretty cool
Steam Chat was a huge deal 20 years ago, but today I would argue it's been displaced by services like Discord.
This used to be a feature, way back in the day. I'm gonna say ~2011-2014. I actually used it quite a bit because it was much easier to share songs within Spotify itself rather than having to go outside the platform. I didn't hate it back in the day.
This is actually really frustrating if there isn’t a way to disable it behind a passcode or something.
Without going into details, my younger brother is incredibly vulnerable to scams, and after the most recent blowout, we’ve locked down his phone (with his support) to significantly reduce his exposure to contact with random people who may exploit him in future. Spotify is one of the few apps his phone can have at the moment, and it sounds like even this might need to be revisited in future if it allows anyone to message him.
I really wish companies would stay in their own lanes sometimes...
I hope they have an option to turn it off. I can't see a reason to get DMs on a music sharing platform.
Don't worry. Soon they will release an AI music companion, so you have something to talk to.
HA turn it off! They won't let you turn off audiobooks or podcasts, so I wouldn't expect that to be an option here based on past results.
It doesn't matter. Someone will pester you to activate it or criticize you for not doing so. I recently started using YT Music through my family YouTube Premium subscription. If you use all the spots in the plan it is reasonably priced. I suppose it also has its issues but right now I have barely any reason to keep Spotify anymore.
I can’t imagine someone I actually want to talk with caring so deeply about being able to message me on Spotify specifically vs one of the many dedicated messaging platforms.
In any case, if no one cares about messaging people on Spotify, then the feature was a failure of another kind.
Maybe I'm old, but I just don't see the point in social-mediatizing everything. I know Spotify has some social media integration and has for a long time (via Facebook I think), but as far as I can tell, it's been pretty diminished over time. I had to open Spotify and take a look to see where the "friends" list was. Or rather, if it was still there. It is, but clearly I haven't touched it in like...10yrs?
Like I get that people share music with each other. I share music with my brother, my family, and my friends, all via Discord where we're all already at. And it's easy to do, either on mobile or on desktop. I don't want another platform that I have to monitor.
Not that new social medias can't be made. TikTok came to the game pretty late after all. But I just can't see that many people using this. Feel like this is just going to be Google+ all over again. I suppose it doesn't hurt current users for them to add this. But I for one won't be using it.
The only thing I have to say to this, is a big fat: "why?"
I wish they finally delivered on lossless audio like they were talking about a few years ago and never actually did. I don’t see the point of this messaging app either. Virtually any alternative is better suited to the task!
Lossless would be the only thing that would make me consider switching from Apple Music. Since I’m on the Apple platform (with many family leeches) I’m kinda stuck paying anyway, tho I have used Spotify years ago and it did feel like it’s got a better algorithm.
I don’t know how Apple Music is but Spotify algorithm is very mediocre.
They also insist on keeping you from banning titles/artists that you hate platform wide. You can only do it per playlist (so idiotic). And they have a metadata problem where they’ll lump all songs by homonyms as songs by the same artist. For instance Rodriguez is mostly the Rodriguez you expect except one shitty dance high beat song that will randomly play in the middle of playing other regular Rodriguez songs (which are a very different and much calmer style, they don’t even compare with one another). And that’s a regular occurrence on Spotify.
I’m only sticking around because I have a cheap family account that I pay polish price for (which is something like a third of my country’s price) but every month I’m reevaluating my laziness to switch. Maybe this time I’ve had enough and will put in the effort to get an Argentinian Tidal or wherever the decent family plan price is.
Thanks for sharing that. I didn’t know about those issues. Is it the same on Apple? Hmm… I don’t know. I might not be using it enough in a way that would allow me to see the issues. I very much treat it almost like my old mp3 player. I search for what I want and add the entire album to my collection, and separately, I add individual songs to playlists only (and not to the collection). This way my library is either full albums, or playlists. No singles or random 1 song albums. I don’t use the algorithm much.
When I used Spotify several years back it was still “new”(ish) and Apple Music wasn’t even a thing yet or it was far behind. I recall back then the algorithm for discovering similar things felt good.
Well, you made me convince myself. I signed up for tidal again.
Nice! I had Tidal until Apple added lossless.
It's great that all these companies are more than happy to open up more avenues for scammers. DMs turn into cam girl or crypto grift delivery pipelines as soon as they are stood up.
Hope they're building good blocking and reporting tools....
Am I taking crazy pills? Wasn't this a feature in Spotify like 10 years ago that they discontinued because no one was using it? I guess online habits have changed, especially for the younger generation that is now using the platform.
Absolutely fucking not. I have had a paid Spotify subscription for a very long time, but this gives me pause.
You could just not use the feature like all the other features you don't use. I don't listen to podcasts at all so I just ignore them on Spotify, no big deal. People complain you can't remove them from the main page, which I agree should be controllable by the user but it turns out I never look at the main page, so really I don't even see them very much. Probably going to be the same thing with this, I already have all the social stuff turned off in my Spotify.
I just switched to YouTube Music. I'm on YouTube anyway so it makes sense for me to pay $13 and get no ads, support my favorite creators, and get an experience from a company that isn't making up artists to distract from real ones.
That is so ridiculous. I am baffled. I don't want the anxiety of social interaction injected in my music playing app. I don't want an additional app for people to send me messages I don't wanna answer, I don't wanna have to deal with their judgement. I don't wanna have an argument because I didn't answer to my mother's message in a timely fashion. On fucking Spotity.
They have recently vowed to put in mandatory age verification checks in light of the UK's Online Safety Act. I wonder if these features were meant to be a means to justify that.
I'm gonna lean on the side of Hanlon's razor for this, there's already plenty of explicit music and podcasts that they could use to justify the age verification. This is just a dumb feature.
I wonder if this is another side effect of AI being so prevalent. The cost for companies to add slop to their apps is now even more minimized. Why not create DMing when it only took 1 hour of their devs work? More standards, more nonsense that gets dripped down everywhere
I have come from the future to tell you that there's a toggle that disables the messages feature in the settings (settings > privacy & social > social features > messaging). At least in the EU.
It also appears you need to explicitly invite someone to chat with you via a link.