My Spotify student subscription just expired, and I'm looking at other options like YouTube Music and other streaming services. What's the best one currently and why?

I want to know about:

Usability (navigation, user experience, etc...)

Catalog of music and artists

Extra features (like lyrics, playlists, connectivity, etc...)

Price and available plans

Audio quality

"Useless extras" (like Spotify Wrapped, for example)

Edit 1: I'm using YouTube Music Premium for 1 week Edit 2: I'm sticking with Spotify because I use the student package (R$11.90), and the YouTube Music student package doesn't include YouTube (separate student subscription for R$16)

Any free streaming sites with good quality music / music videos

I don't like paying for subscriptions. I use free Pandora and I like the stations. I also use free YouTube music because that's where I uploaded all my flac. Are there better free options (I don't mind the ads) with good quality bitrate that I don't know about.

I'm not just talking about quality, I'm also referring to whether there is good optimization in its interface, an extensive catalog, and that there are no bugs in its mobile version (cough cough tidal)

Hi,

since spotify wants to raise the price about 20% me and most of my friends are looking for alternatives. Where do you people go to and why?

I was contemplating Youtube Music since you can also add all videos to your playlist that are uploaded there and play them just as normal music. Alternatively Amazon Music, but I am not sure they have as many songs.

Cheers!

I was reading this Harper's article titled, The Ghosts in the Machine: Spotify’s plot against musicians and was wondering which streaming platform provides the most support or financial payouts to musicians?

As a consumer, I love Spotify and I pay $23.72/month (CAD) for it, but I don't want to be support a business that causes artists to stop producing music - I want to support them. I'm not going back to buying CDs and ripping them. Nor do I trust Apple that the individual albums that I "buy" will be available eternally.

What are my alternatives? I want an all-you-can-eat streaming experience that actually pays musicians fairly.

I'm honestly just really annoyed with streaming right now. Recently I left Spotify because I was forced to listen to music on shuffle when listening on my Mac (the device I use the most when listening to music). Then I switched to Deezer and I was liking it a lot. But now I can only listen to 30 seconds of a song if I stay on the free plan.

Frankly, I don't think being able to listen to an album the way an artist intended, or listening to a song in full, are premium features. I just want a simple, user-friendly, streaming service that will actually let me listen to my music in peace. Any suggestions?

What music streaming service do you use and why?

For your wired and DAC/AMP and for Bluetooth HP?

Please pardon me if this is a stupid question (I am An Old), but, what is the best streaming service for Electronic Music? Or are they all the same? I'm a big fan of bands / DJs like Tinlicker, Marsh, Luttrell, Orbital, Royksopp, Com Truise, Boards of Canada, and a lot of artists on the Anjunadeep label. Where would I find the most complete discographies of artists like these? Thank you!

Update: Thanks everyone for the info ... I've got some researching to do!

I’m curious to see the results. Does having lossless audio mean a lot to you?

I use Spotify for years (since 2020) but it has some negatives:

1. No Hi Fi / Lossless Audio support

2. I have to increase the volume on my iPhone a lot to get a similar noise sound as Apple Music and Tidal

3. Apple Watch app and Apple experiences are not the great and natively overall compared to Apple Music

I tried Apple Music a bunch of times, but still I’m coming back to Apple Music due to:

1. Wrong album dates

2. A more bugs and lags than Spotify

3. Cider app for PC is completely trash (No good app for pc, and the web version and iTunes are both too slow)

4. Playlists ordering is a mess

5. Removing an album from library removes all the songs in the library

6. Not showing numbers of views and trending artists songs like Spotify

I also tried Tidal, but:

1. iOS app is meh compared to Apple Music

2. I use the Hi Fi Plus trail plan and only PC makes the sound difference, on iOS it sounds worse and more quite compared to Apple Music

3. No Shazam app support like Spotify and Apple Music

4. Artists are sometimes duplicated or have merged songs of other artists with the same names

5. Almost every album and song has a duplicate (happens more often than Apple Music, and it’s making it not organized)

My use cases: iPhone 14 Pro/iPad Pro 11 2018/Apple Watch SE 1 with AirPods Pro 1 (2019), and Windows Gaming PC with Beyerdynamic DT-990 Pro studio headphones with a Yamaha AG06 mixer (instead of a DAC station).

I want to choose only one app between Spotify, Apple Music and Tidal. Which one should I choose at the end?

What is the best service for legit new/unknown music discovery. A decade or so ago, I remember listening to a podcast that claimer Pandora used 100+ data points in a song to analyse and provide recommendations.

Was that ever true? And if so, a decade on I don't feel any services I know do that. I feel like if I listen to something from Adult Contemporary (or any other category), they just give me the top 300 songs from that, in some random, made up list.

I'm not saying Spotify is bad, it's just nothing rarely surprises me.

Who has the best recommendations for new, unheard, non-popular music that is actually like the song you are listening to?

For me it currently is Spotify, but I wonder if any of the other services like Tidal or Deezer have benefits I am missing?

Pondering switching services since It feels like Spotify mainly pushes its own playlists, which often end up sounding like “more of the same” to me. I also read that they recently made significant cuts to songwriter royalties which I think is an awful move they can only get away with because the whole music industry is dependent on them.

What application/platform is everyone using to listen to music on the regular?

Tell me your thoughts on it, what are the pros? What are the cons?

Ex: Spotify, Pandora, YouTube Music

I just wanted to get some people's insights on what music services they use currently. There are a multitude of them out there now and have heard some interesting responses before.

My wife & daughter use iphones and spotify (which they have been complaining has been crap for the past couple months), my son uses samsung and youtube music and I use Pixel and Amazon prime music. Trying to consolidate into one music streaming service. Wondering which of these services would sound great across any device.

Edit: Wow so many people for Tidal. I will sign up for the trial and see how good it is. Thanks for all the help.

Edit 2: Decided to do a Qobuz trial also since so many are recommending it also. Now I just have to remember to cancel one lol.

Final Edit: We ended up choosing YouTube music. Everyone in my family picked it. They all listen to it on their phones or cars. I play it exclusively in my truck via Android Auto. Its been 6 months no complaints.

Hello everyone!

Been wanting to do some research on the best music streaming app, but every app always has some caveat that prevents it from being GREAT.

I’ve always used Spotify and never really ventured out that far so was hoping yall could help. I understand the best way to support the artist is to buy directly, but in the age of streaming it can be difficult.

My biggest stipulations are

• Large catalog (I mention because I tried Bandcamp app, they didn’t have enough of the mainstream stuff I liked) • Pays the artist more than other apps (I’m aware Spotify is one of the worst for this) • UI/Functionality across other platforms • High quality sound • Recommendations/overall app experience dedicated to the user (I feel Spotify does a great job at this)

The price isn’t necessarily a huge factor to me as paying the artist more fairly is worth the extra $$

Social also isn’t huge deal to me.

Thank you.