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[–]contrahall 2962 points2963 points  (160 children)

If anyone genuinely cares about the streaming service that’ll pay artists the most per stream it’s Napster.

[–]socialmediasanity 1445 points1446 points  (65 children)

Wait one GD second... Napster is still a thing?!

[–]CanoeIt 690 points691 points  (30 children)

yes they bought a streaming company called Rhapsody

[–]kparis 501 points502 points  (4 children)

So that’s what happened to rhapsody

[–]gentlebuzzard81 64 points65 points  (8 children)

Nope, Rhapsody bought Napster and then rebranded itself as Napster. Source: was engineer with Rhapsody when the whole thing went down.

Edit: To add Napster is now owned by MelodyVR. The name has been passed around a lot.

[–]aSoberTool 13 points14 points  (7 children)

Wasn't it called realmusic or something before they rebranded it to Rhapsody?

[–][deleted] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

I used to use Rhapsody and swapped to Spotify in 2013/2014. It was a pretty solid app if my memory serves me right. Maybe I’ll download Napster and check it out.

[–][deleted] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Those God damn bohemians.

[–]whining-and-wine 55 points56 points  (5 children)

[–]plopdawg 29 points30 points  (4 children)

With speakers so loud they blow women's clothes off

[–]TheyCallMeLotus0 9 points10 points  (3 children)

Totally watched this last night. Strange how that works!

[–]LordGhoul 287 points288 points  (13 children)

Napster went to college and grew into those tits like you wouldn't believe.

[–]GrapeJuicePlus 49 points50 points  (3 children)

Is this a marketing psyop- because that line definitely convinced me to give it a try.

[–]LordGhoul 22 points23 points  (2 children)

It's not, although in my current broke state I wish I was paid for advertising.

[–]drfeelsgoood 21 points22 points  (1 child)

You can! Just join my program for $200 and I will tell you the secrets to business! For each person (up to 3) you also bring along, you’ll get $50 off for each!

[–]jk3us 70 points71 points  (1 child)

Napster went to my college, my parents still had dial up when I left for college and I found really good use for that sweet dorm room bandwidth. The IT department asked me to slow down from my excessive use of Napster/gnutella.

[–]afganistanimation 11 points12 points  (0 children)

We had to dial up also when I had Napster at college, but in school you could put somebody on your friends list and instantly transfer all their songs into your account, it was amazing.

[–]MattTheGr8 2 points3 points  (5 children)

Is that a quote from something? It sounds familiar, but if it is from something, I can’t place it.

[–]Zeegh 6 points7 points  (2 children)

I’m guessing Metallica isn’t on Napster

[–]Minimob0 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Napster's back, and the Metaverse is building steam. Futurama's depiction of internet in the year 3000 is spot on.

[–]Booblers 58 points59 points  (28 children)

How do the artist payments compare for each service?

[–]CannibalHannibal 204 points205 points  (27 children)

T-Pain posted this graphic about a month ago and made it seem like, if it wasn't exactly spot on, it was close enough.

[–]RedditPowerUser01 164 points165 points  (17 children)

YouTube music making Spotify look philanthropic.

[–]idm 62 points63 points  (3 children)

In the thread below there's a reply saying YouTube music's payout is actually higher than most of the others sooooo, now I don't know what to believe. Would love some concrete sources rather than pictures posted on twitter 😖

[–]LordGhoul 52 points53 points  (2 children)

https://dittomusic.com/en/blog/how-much-do-music-streaming-services-pay-musicians/ Here's one source. I've been looking at a lot of different statistics and graphics and they all point to Napster(/Rhapsody) paying the best, followed by Tidal. For YouTube it's a bit confusing, I think it's because there's a difference in pay from a free account listening to music through normal YouTube vs subscription YouTube

[–]disposable_account01 6 points7 points  (1 child)

In this calculator, Google Play is the one to pick for YouTube Music basically. But given the calculator is so old, I question the veracity of it’s numbers today.

[–]LordGhoul 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah it's a bit hard, but if you compare some charts there's some that are always on top of the rest. Though YouTube really jumps around the charts, again I'm not sure what's been going on behind the scenes for those rates.

[–]CannibalHannibal 37 points38 points  (12 children)

to be honest, i was using YouTube Music but wasn't a fan. then i saw that chart and that kinda was the push i needed to switch.

my only guess is that because YouTube music has a ridiculously huge user base, it balances out. at least, i hope so.

[–]Somepotato 40 points41 points  (9 children)

A shame ytm is absolutely dogshit compared to Google music. Rip my prince.

[–]CannibalHannibal 27 points28 points  (4 children)

Google Play was special and i think around the time when i subscribed (2016-17), it was one of the better paying platforms for artists. absolutely R.I.P.

[–]Somepotato 15 points16 points  (3 children)

I had bought a lot of songs on GPM. Can't even access those songs anymore. I hate how they massacred my boy.

[–]vanalla 12 points13 points  (0 children)

DRM is an actual stain on society

[–]ifsck 9 points10 points  (0 children)

"You can still upload and play your own music!"

Yeah, but it's walled off from being mixed with anything streaming. YTM is awful. Go with the Vanced app if you really need it.

[–]TwatsThat 24 points25 points  (2 children)

I don't think that's necessarily very accurate. Some quick searching seems to show that no one really agrees on what each platform pays and that's probably because it varies based on multiple variables for each platform.

It's also worth noting that what T-Pain posted is just something that was on r/coolguides and was based on a previous and unsourced r/coolguides post by someone else and is not information he's sharing based on what he earns from those platforms.

[–]SuspiciousCurtains 12 points13 points  (1 child)

https://producerhive.com/music-marketing-tips/streaming-royalties-breakdown/

I think this is the original source and it definitely doesn't track with what's in coolguides

[–]Ray229harris 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Last time that one was posted; it was said to be veryyyyyy outdated.

[–]MaleficentPizza5444 2 points3 points  (0 children)

♡♡♡♡♡♡ Reddit leads a Twitter post that leads back to.... Reddit. Saving this, gotta check out Deezer

[–]Hunter8Line 41 points42 points  (0 children)

Ironic given the origins of the name, but they also bought Rhapsody and just rebranded so built in decent foundation

[–]Geraveoyomama 97 points98 points  (15 children)

Or how about bandcamp?

[–]LordGhoul 229 points230 points  (9 children)

Bandcamp isn't a streaming service, but it definitely should be everyone's go-to (besides directly from the artist) when you want to buy their music and support them directly (they offer both digital downloads and physical records). Especially for their fee free Fridays they introduced during these Corona times (so many gigs cancelled) where 100% of the profit goes to the artist!

I'm friends with a few artists and it was sweet seeing some of them no longer had to financially worry about their existence or do secondary jobs because their bandcamp record sales got them covered for a few months down the line.

[–]Pooptimist 39 points40 points  (4 children)

I believe once you bought the tracks you can also listen to them via their app

[–]LordGhoul 38 points39 points  (0 children)

Yes you can, but only your purchased records as unpurchased ones have a limited number of free streams before it asks you to purchase. And it doesn't allow you to make playlists like with streaming services.

It's perfect for my purchased album binges though lol.

[–]RamenJunkie 2 points3 points  (2 children)

The app sucks though. It has almost zero functionality. You are better off downloading them and using VLC on your phone.

I do like Bandcamp as a service though. I usually buy from Bandcamp or 7Digital, sometimes HDTracks.

[–]Pooptimist 2 points3 points  (1 child)

I personally don't use the app, so I can't speak for its quality. I use mediamonkey android as music player. That way I can listen to my flac files on the go

[–]RamenJunkie 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I may look into that. I like VLC but it has some quirks. I tried Foobar but it was kind of meh.

[–]DirtyBirdDawg 8 points9 points  (3 children)

Especially for their fee free Fridays they introduced during these Corona times (so many gigs cancelled) where 100% of the profit goes to the artist!

I've spent a ton of money on Bandcamp over the years yet I never knew about this. Looks like I'm going to be buying some new music this coming Friday.

[–]LordGhoul 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yup, they've been doing it the first Friday of every month for quite a while now. I noticed because I follow my favourite artists on twitter and they like to advertise fee free Friday. Bandcamp is amazing for doing this.

[–]NegiTotoro 2 points3 points  (1 child)

They have a page to track the next one. https://isitbandcampfriday.com

[–]Ep1cFac3pa1m 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I signed up for Napster, then it was Rhapsody, now it’s Napster again. When I found out they paid artists more than Spotify does I decided to stick around.

[–]Uncle-Cake 6 points7 points  (0 children)

How the turntables... have...

[–]Gelu_dragon 5 points6 points  (0 children)

ironic

[–]PowerMonkey500 8 points9 points  (2 children)

Napster

How on earth have they not decided to rebrand?

[–]beandips 26 points27 points  (1 child)

They specifically kept the name for recognition and visibility. "Napster, now legal!" is a pretty strong marketing campaign.

[–]Jeff_Bridges_Bridges 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I just got a free trial for Napster and Tidal, do you know how to get "Add to Queue" or "Add to Playlist" in Napster directly on the search results page on the mobile app? That is literally the only interface issue I have with their app.

Otherwise it is awesome that they've gone from music industry pariah to the highest artist payouts :)

[–]GreyBoyTigger 2 points3 points  (2 children)

I seriously had to reread this comment several times to get it to sink in. What’s next, Limewire replacing Netflix?

[–]ScrambledEggs_ 2079 points2080 points  (241 children)

I feel like supporting Apple and Amazon would be just as bad. Is there another alternative?

[–]AppleNerd19 238 points239 points  (25 children)

So Apple pays $.008 per stream, Amazon $.004, Spotify $.003, YouTube $.002, and Pandora $.001.

So of the big names, Apple pays artists way more.

But beyond those names if you want the platform that truly pays the highest per stream then Tidal pays $.012.

I’ve never used Tidal or Deezer to know if they match the experience of the big names. Honestly, I thought Tidal was shutting down but 🤷🏻‍♂️

Source:

https://producerhive.com/music-marketing-tips/streaming-royalties-breakdown/

Edit: grammar Edit 2: Corrected the rate for Deezer which is $.0011 rather than $.011

[–]LordGhoul 83 points84 points  (4 children)

You are wrong about Deezer per your own source, it's actually $0.0011, making it one of the lowest. Tidal and (sadly not listed in that graph) Napster are the highest.

[–]AppleNerd19 11 points12 points  (2 children)

You’re right, I misread it. Thanks.

[–]LordGhoul 3 points4 points  (0 children)

No problem! Always happy to help out

[–]ienjoyedit 35 points36 points  (5 children)

Thinking hard about making the switch to Tidal right now. My trial period ($2 for three months of their best plan) so far isn't bad. Only missing some of the really obscure stuff I had on Spotify, and I'm not particularly upset about most of that. The app is more responsive, too, which is a big plus.

[–]arenegadeboss 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I've used tidal for a while and I love it. Great sound quality (I have the $20 plan) and an easy to use app once you get used to it.

The biggest drawback is sharing songs/playlist with others because they don't use tidal.

Opening up YouTube, searching the song, and then sharing is a pain.

[–]JustPicnicsAndPanics 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I’ve never used Tidal or Deezer to know if they match the experience of the big names.

The quality is good but they're missing some weird music. Like they have An Autumn for Crippled Children, but they're missing my favorite album (Only the Ocean Knows). They have Nekrogoblikon, but not their best albums (Stench and Goblin Island, only the EP and two albums after they got big). Rainbowdragoneyes only has their soundtrack for the Messenger, plus a few singles. Nobody has Death Grips' Exmilitary so I can't fault them for that.

Still, they most everything I love and listen to, so Tidal + picking up some extra music through Bandcamp is an option. A slightly pricey option, but we'll see how I feel after the trial ends. Liking it so far.

[–]derWintersenkommt 897 points898 points  (68 children)

This comment should be up top. Spotify, Apple, Pandora and Amazon all proposed the same ideas and are making the same shifts into ripping of the artists hosted on their streaming services even more than they already do now.

Edit: mistakenly left Pandora out.

[–]Inconsistent_Car 136 points137 points  (43 children)

What proposed idea are you referring to?

[–]derWintersenkommt 375 points376 points  (40 children)

Less royalties to artists, more money to shareholders and CEO. A basic fucking over of artists, with no lube.

[–]Antique_Geek 201 points202 points  (13 children)

Shareholders. The bane of the world.

[–]WhatADunderfulWorld 26 points27 points  (3 children)

This is practically every successful company though. Most artist make their money with licensing to movies, commercials and live shows. Before Spotify the radio wasn’t paying artists much either.

[–]n05h 66 points67 points  (6 children)

Aren’t the real scum bags the agencies skimming their percentage on everything the artist does? And basically owning the rights 90% of the time. And sometimes maliciously using copyright strikes against creators using their music? I’ve seen how those practices negatively impact artists and they have no say in it.

[–]derWintersenkommt 32 points33 points  (0 children)

You are absolutely right and I 100% agree with you, everyone down the chain is culpable.

My comment is staying on topic with the comment I am responding to, though.

[–]surasurasura 19 points20 points  (2 children)

Not aimed at you OP, but I always find it funny that everyone agrees that agents are parasites that siphon off most of the artists profits without actually creating the art, but then gleefully defend private corporations doing the exact same shit with their employees.

[–]n05h 7 points8 points  (0 children)

You’re not wrong, I felt like bringing this up because I’ve seen up close how artists had no control over excessive copyright claims, money they never see, while their image is negatively impacted. And we’re all ready to hate on Spotify rn because of the rogan stuff. Could the streaming services do better? Yeah. But they bring benefits too in terms of discoverability. So I don’t see them as evil I guess.

[–]barbatron 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The big labels that own most music make sure it stays that way, and the technological competition takes care of the rest

[–]notluciferforreal 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hey, where's youtube?

[–]ldoot 137 points138 points  (10 children)

Also, the CEO of Spotify recently announced a personal 100 million investment in AI weapons technologies so its never been a better time to boycott them.

[–]I_NEED_YOUR_MONEY 12 points13 points  (3 children)

if you think you're gonna get all music ever made for $10/mo in some ethical way, you're lying to yourself. if you want to support the artists, buy their albums, buy concert tickets, or buy merch. Don't expect the streaming service you hardly pay anything for to do it.

not saying don't subscribe to a streaming service. I do, I love the convenience. but i'm not gonna pretend it's morally all that much different to piracy.

[–]moresushiplease 229 points230 points  (38 children)

You might want to check out Tidal.

[–][deleted] 107 points108 points  (17 children)

Tidal only really pays more to those who have a big enough stake in tidal, like Jay Z, for example. It’s not the wonderful thing it claims to be but it may be marginally better.

[–]JehovasFinesse 26 points27 points  (2 children)

I'd settle for marginally better till I can find infinitely better. I've heard good things about Bandcamp.

[–]LordGhoul 45 points46 points  (0 children)

Bandcamp isn't a streaming service, it's more for buying but the artists get paid the best and some can even live off bandcamp alone, so if you really enjoy a record I can recommend buying it through the artists bandcamp. For streaming, Napster seems to pay the best, followed by Tidal, though streaming in general always pays less in comparison to actually buying a record. A mix of both depending on your finances is always good.

[–]Tzurok 37 points38 points  (6 children)

Yea except if you listen to alot of non popular music you might end up missing some of them... didn't go past the first playlist transfer after i was missing 25% of them , maybe it'll improve in the future because at least where I live it has higher bitrate and is a bit cheaper than Spotify... I'll try again next year I guess...

[–]LordGhoul 13 points14 points  (3 children)

I had some errors initially but then manually checked for the songs and artists and most were actually there despite the transfering showing errors, so double check just to make sure.

[–]Mccobsta 12 points13 points  (8 children)

Tidals app is insanely broken and they use mqa which a lot of their users hate

[–]JehovasFinesse 76 points77 points  (0 children)

Waiting for my free award so I can give it to yous.

Edit:Holy fuck I should have wished for world peace! Or chicken wings. Or world peace BECAUSE of chicken wings.

[–]TheFakeKanye 30 points31 points  (1 child)

People are trying so hard to find a corporation that agrees with their personal moral beliefs. They'll never find it.

[–]youmes 27 points28 points  (6 children)

Deezer is another option

[–]ennaeel 4 points5 points  (1 child)

I just switched to Deezer and love it! It took maybe 10 minutes for all of my songs, favorites, and playlists to be transferred over.

Their Flow mix is somehow way more satisfying than the playlists Spotify generated. I don't find myself asking "how'd this song get on here?" quite as often.

[–]evaneswards77 17 points18 points  (3 children)

This or Napster or datpiff are the highest paying out to artist per stream I saw on another sub

[–]Zipdox 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Deezer offers lossless streaming, without DRM. This allows you to download your music as FLAC (provided you paid for Deezer HiFi) using third party software like Deemix and Freezer.

[–]Mccobsta 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There's deezer they seem to be the less evil one at the moment

[–]oraltom 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Deezer works for me.

[–]itsmeonmobile 106 points107 points  (9 children)

This is great news, but moving from Spotify to Amazon is not exactly the right way to go about this.

[–]professor_mc 144 points145 points  (22 children)

So half a generation ago everyone decided music should be free. Napster and mp3 downloads pretty much killed music sales. But now it seems that everyone is concerned about how much artists are paid. Sorry but that ship sailed when everyone quit buying music. I have 2 bands with about a dozen albums on streaming services. In today’s market (with a few exceptions) it’s either distribute digitally or sell next to nothing. The token amount of vinyl we sell is a tiny revenue stream compared to digital. Vinyl is also a huge investment and takes physical distribution.

From a bands perspective Spotify is where to be because that’s were the people are. They are the largest service. They are also way better for getting discovered by new fans than other services. No other service has grown my bands fan base like Spotify has. So the combination of their reach and size outweighs the fraction of a penny difference per play offered by other services. My bands get paid more from Spotify than from all the other services combined with the exclusion of Apple which is a distant 2nd in payouts. All the others add up to squat.

Would it be nice for streaming to pay more? Of course! But remember that we are negotiating up from the zero that the public was willing to pay in the free download era.

[–]hellvella 22 points23 points  (0 children)

If I want to support upcoming/local bands I'll buy their merch, most of whom I've discovered on spotify

[–]Iohet 9 points10 points  (2 children)

I buy most of my music from Bandcamp and 7digital. I struggle to understand why some bands refuse to sell digital albums(or tracks). I don't want to rent my music, I want to buy it and own it forever. I also don't understand why some bands have little to no merch, which is much easier money if you have any kind of following.

Fwiw my brother has been in two successful bands and touring(including merch) has always been where the money is from his perspective

[–]professor_mc 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Yes, touring and merchandise are the bread and butter. But tours are not always possible for some bands and there have been huge COVID-19 disruptions.

[–]professor_mc 4 points5 points  (0 children)

You are an outlier when it comes to owning MP3s rather than streaming. All the albums I manage are available as MP3 downloads from Apple, Amazon and several other sites and if they accounted for 1% of our revenue I’d be surprised.

[–]TrexMommy 159 points160 points  (245 children)

Can someone ELI5 what is happening with Spotify?

[–]keetykeety 340 points341 points  (47 children)

Ppl will bring up the joe Rogan thing but they also rip off the artists and make millions.

[–]new_account_5009 105 points106 points  (16 children)

On the other hand, if services like Spotify didn't exist, people would probably spend even less money on music. Get rid of streaming services, and piracy will go way up. I used to pirate all of my music, but I pay for Spotify because it's more convenient than pirating. Altogether, I spend $120/year on the subscription alone, and I also go to a lot of concerts I wouldn't have known about without Spotify. I definitely spend more on music now, especially for artists that wouldn't be popular enough to make it to the radio.

I don't want to go back to pirating again, but if we end up with a situation where a significant number of artists abandon the streaming services because they don't like other people's political opinions, I won't really have a choice. Artists don't like that, but I'm just being honest. I'm not going to buy individual albums for $20 apiece again like it's the 1990s.

[–]williamtbash 6 points7 points  (4 children)

I think you hugely overestimate the amount of people that pirate music. I could tell you that 97% of the people I know barely know what a VPN is let alone how to use torrents. Sure everyone used Napster and Kazaa in college, but those days are over.

[–]AcrylicZhenga 2 points3 points  (1 child)

And why do you think that is? Do you not know how popular sites like Limewire were before streaming service giants like YouTube, Spotify or Netflix came onto the picture? Hate on these corporations all you want, but they reinvigorated an entire industry by innovating with the times. Imo, artists today would have been far worse off had Spotify not captured such a large userbase, as increasing piracy and tanking physical sales were dealing a death blow to the music industry long before the whole revenue per stream proposal was even on the table

[–]LordGhoul 10 points11 points  (9 children)

I don't think you will be forced to pirate, as there's so many alternatives to Spotify which actually pay the artists more (like Napster and Tidal mentioned in this thread), but artists will still make the most money from people going to their gigs and buying their merch or their music through the band themselves or Bandcamp. I love music but I'm not rich so I can't buy every record, so I use streaming services out of convenience. When I really like an artist's record, I save up some money to buy a record from them to support them. It's a compromise that works out for both of us eventually.

[–]ivoryebonies 8 points9 points  (0 children)

This is true. I released my first solo album on Friday. I've made $0.05 across streaming platforms, but approx. $70 in Bandcamp sales. Glad it's not my day job, either way!

[–]FlyingApple31 71 points72 points  (5 children)

Some artists are realizing that Spotify is basically a giant stage, and that people they despise and recognize as harmful to society are getting a huge boost there.

So they are removing themselves from that association, as is their right.

And a lot of their fans are following suit.

[–]zasxqwedc 37 points38 points  (15 children)

Joe Rogan's podcast is on it, so people are boycotting it.

[–]Galateismo 106 points107 points  (9 children)

what app or service is good from spotify to YouTube?

[–][deleted] 56 points57 points  (4 children)

They should do this for Netflix. I imagine it would make break ups easier.

[–]withurwife 15 points16 points  (3 children)

People will be a lot happier when they stop politicizing everything. Fuck Joe Rogan but I’m not moving apps over it. Apple Music sucks.

[–]K0RS41R 58 points59 points  (3 children)

Great YSK post. I used SongShift to move from Spotify to Apple Music over a year ago, but mainly because our family got way more value and bang for buck with the Apple One plan, which included music. No point keeping a separate subscription for Spotify. It worked pretty well tbh, a few songs were hit and miss but the changeover wasn’t too bad honestly. Spotify is a better app overall I’d say, but a year later honestly I’m very happy with Apple Music, and have all my Spotify playlists sorted.

[–]RomanOnARiver 18 points19 points  (16 children)

What streaming service supports all the platforms and lets me use my own audio files? Trying to find the alternative to Spotify to switch to.

[–]kianworld 5 points6 points  (4 children)

Apple Music lets you upload your local files from iTunes on Windows and Music.app on macOS to iCloud and stream or download them on anything that plays Apple Music. Works flawlessly when iTunes doesn't crash.

[–]wiuw 8 points9 points  (2 children)

YouTube Music allows this.

Combined with ad-free YouTube Premium, it's my preferred option.

[–]say592 2 points3 points  (0 children)

YouTube Music is a great deal. Solid streaming platform, and you can watch YouTube ad free and all of the creators that you watch can still get paid, even if their content isn't usually ad friendly.

[–]milutin_miki 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Deezer also lets you upload your own files and as a streaming service is awesome

[–]kavonruden 14 points15 points  (1 child)

The irony is too rich here. So the Spotify overlords are greedy, blood sucking parasites, but they're also expected to be trustworthy and absolute arbiters of truth and reason across their platform? I'm with Glen Greenwald on this one.

[–]DangerRangerScurr 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Lets instead support apple and amazon, the beacons of freedom

[–]rodacacaaa 118 points119 points  (53 children)

I'm migrating to Tidal, would super appreciate this info!

[–]shadow_irradiant 198 points199 points  (35 children)

Tidal is great, but there’s a few things you should know

  1. MQA is a scam. A plain scam. It’s a lossy format and in no way comes close to FLAC, even though they ambiguously claim as such. A YouTuber called Goldensound even uploaded reference audio samples to be encoded in MQA and showed how bad it was. The company pulled down all his “songs” and just lied a bunch more.
  2. For songs that have the MQA (Master quality. Says Master beside the track), the Hi Fi quality is actually a downsampled MQA file. So you can’t get lossless on those songs period.

Actually, no. Tidal is just not great, because of how they charge you extra money for “better quality” and give you a clearly inferior product for a good portion of their catalogue, while lying about it. Qobuz, Deezer or even Spotify is much better. I’ve used Tidal for 6 months and now I just use Spotify (And… piracy :3). Didn’t notice any big difference even with my audiophile setup.

[–]LordGhoul 33 points34 points  (2 children)

Can you compare to Napster? It's one that pays artists the best currently. Actually if any Music Enthusiast YouTuber is lurking this thread, now is the perfect time for a video about Streaming service comparison lol

[–]shadow_irradiant 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Just did a quick search and apparently Napster is a legit streaming service. Haven’t tried that, actually heard of it the first time here. I’d really watch that comparison video.

Honestly, if a streaming service makes you feel better, just go for it. The differences are so minute it really doesn’t matter.

[–]pattyredditaccount 10 points11 points  (2 children)

Weird to have a audiophile setup but then use Spotify instead of Apple Music which has hi-res lossless for no extra cost

[–]ChaosPheonix11 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I mean, the Spotify highest quality pre set is roughly as good as the normal Apple “lossless” IMO, (or at least, only slightly worse) but the “Hi-Res Lossless”, while definitely better, is available on a paltry amount of their catalog. Been using it almost 3 months and have found MAYBE half a dozen of the songs I’ve listened to in that format. Mostly classic rock. I haven’t found a single EDM track or hip hop song that’s the better format.

[–]Neglected_Martian 16 points17 points  (5 children)

Apple Music has much better lossless sound quality.

[–]Flumeisthegreatest 6 points7 points  (0 children)

And Dolby Atmos! The surround sound is amazing on a proper surround system.

[–]FindingTheMiddle 12 points13 points  (10 children)

Same here. If you figure it out, please let me know. I tried but didn't have luck

[–]rodacacaaa 29 points30 points  (8 children)

Found it https://tidal.com/import-playlist?s=09

It's a 2 USD a month but you can import and cancel.

I've imported over 35k songs and 340 playlists I had for over 10 years with Spotify as my only steam music service.

Closing my account today.

[–]jorgomli_reading 8 points9 points  (6 children)

I wish Tidal had the same library Spotify does. It looks like a great replacement and Spotify destroys audio when I play it in my car for some reason. I've tried changing all the settings in the app, but playing a song on Spotify, then playing the same song on YouTube through my car speakers is night and day different. Spotify has like no bass and sounds super flat and I have never been able to figure out why. Would love to find a good replacement.

Tidal doesn't have the most recent (6 months old-ish or more?) album from my favorite band, so I have doubts on how robust it's library is compared to Spotify :(

[–]rodacacaaa 2 points3 points  (1 child)

I'm only missing some small artists and the Spotify sessions, but all else is there.

[–]arczi 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I used Soundiiz. The whole process was quick and relatively straightforward.

[–]The_Closeted_Kid 3 points4 points  (3 children)

watch dankpods video on tidal, from what I've seen it's an atrocious buggy mess

[–]Mccobsta 85 points86 points  (34 children)

Local music stores that sell cds are a even better alternative than most streaming services you get to keep a coppy of the album and the record lable can't just pull it from you with out warning

[–]LordGhoul 44 points45 points  (2 children)

Bandcamp is also good for this because you can buy a physical record if you want to but you can also download a record digitally and then just keep it on a drive or somewhere secure and don't have to worry about it vanishing even when the artist leaves bandcamp because you downloaded the files into safety

[–]wistoon33 11 points12 points  (2 children)

I hear ya but if I bought every album I listened to over the last couple of years it’d be 10s of thousands of dollars.

[–]zizzie 4 points5 points  (1 child)

Also the whole issue of music in cars. I just bought a 2021 RAV4 and it doesn’t even have a CD player in it.

[–][deleted] 61 points62 points  (21 children)

There’s so much of Spotify that isn’t on Apple Music though. sweaty dilemma

[–]dla26 23 points24 points  (12 children)

Really? Like what? As I've been exploring the catalogs, I've actually found Apple to have a better international selection. Genuinely curious since I haven't done a deep dive on this, just a superficial look.

[–]Mystyrion 5 points6 points  (0 children)

For me they were missing some older DnB from artists that stopped producing music and some older records from rap artists that I listen to. Apple was like 90% when I tried to transfer everything over, but I hate Apples UI matched with missing some music, I ended up swapping back.

[–]extralyfe 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I'm starting to get tired of Spotify just removing/adding back things on a weekly basis.

it's really bad with stand-up, which is what I'm usually listening to on my way to and from work. like, say, Bill Burr used to have a few albums on there, but, they're gone, now. Anthony Jeselnik only shows one album for his entire discography, despite the fact that I have three of his albums in my recently played list.

it's just a bunch of arbitrary bullshit.

[–]possiblynotanexpert 12 points13 points  (0 children)

And the other direction, too. Pros and cons of each one.

[–]Lunardum 82 points83 points  (0 children)

take my award you saved my music!

[–]jeffa_jaffa 39 points40 points  (13 children)

I used Song Shift to go from Spotify to Apple Music & it was fine

[–]BigFatTomato 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Just did this a few days ago. Spotify to Apple. Works very well

[–]ArthrogryposisMan 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I started with napster and i guess ill end with napster

[–]1saltymf 20 points21 points  (25 children)

Nice but what about my library in general? I don’t use playlists.

[–]danny1131 21 points22 points  (11 children)

Add your whole library to a new playlist (if by "library" you mean "liked songs")

[–]1saltymf 4 points5 points  (7 children)

Does Spotify not have a “library” other than a playlist containing your “liked songs”. if not then that’s annoying and I won’t be switching. I like that Apple has a base library of songs and you can create playlists off of that. For example in apple if you add a song to a certain playlist, you can also choose whether to add this to your “library” versus not adding it.

Why? Because I shuffle my entire library all the time when I don’t feel like choosing a song/genre to play.

[–]idontcarolinee 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Holy shit this might be revolutionary for me - I love Spotify and it’s features but I hate their “shuffle” algorithm. No matter how hard I try, their shuffle will play the same group of songs over and over again. I have playlists with almost 500 songs but the shuffle only plays the same 20 songs, it drives me mad. This is perfect because other streaming services like Apple actually have good shuffle algorithms. Thank you for sharing!

[–]foonsirhc 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I wish I could export a spreadsheet

[–]Beginning-Ad354 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Or you could pirate it

[–]SeasonedTimeTraveler 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks Neil

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I download mp3s