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Same. I'm a Spotify lifer unless something catastrophic happens to their service or media availability. The only alternative service I even debated about was A

Same. I'm a Spotify lifer unless something catastrophic happens to their service or media availability. The only alternative service I even debated about was Apple Music when they first announced their streaming service, but there is no clear advantage to their service and I hate the Apple Music UI. I hope they find a way to help a bigger % of the revenue get into the hands of artists and start cutting out the big record companies who just middleman everything. But other than that, no complaints.

ishansharma 9y ago
I was an Apple music since launch(till a month back). But once I tried Spotify and the playlists, I switched instantly. While Apple Music is a competitor, it's not everywhere like Spotify is and their recommendations are horrible. In all time using them, I discovered 2 songs that I liked. With 4 weeks on Spotify, I'm already at 25!
- joezydeco 9y ago
  I've switched to an Amazon ecosystem (dot, fireTv, etc) and Spotify just works seamlessly between them all. I love it. I have to wonder how many users Spotify picked up when Apple blew the christmas HomePod release and Amazon flushed out Alexa-enabled devices at heavy discounts.
  - prklmn 9y ago
    The echo dot was the best selling product on amazon over Christmas. Luckily for Apple, I don’t think a $30 device will lock someone into an ecosystem.
    - joezydeco 9y ago
      Man, I don't know. I'm moving away from iOS/Siri/HomeKit/HomePod/iCloud(ugh) instead of moving toward it. It might not be a lock-in, but given my track time on a non-Apple ecosystem and the value I'm getting out of Spotify compared to Apple Music...I'm not going back any time soon. And, yeah: all it took was a $30 device.
- timc3 9y ago
  As an alternative opinion I used both Apple Music and Spotify. Apple Music’s recommendation has been amazing for me, and Spotifys terrible and I have fairly strange tastes in music (play dark-Berghein techno, but then like exploring as many genres from around the world as possible). If Apple Music was supported in as many places as Spotify I would drop Spotify.
kaftoy 9y ago
I really don't want to change this discussion into a "which is the best music streaming service" debate, but I am really curious, why haven't your considered Google Play Music? Interface? Songs count? Price? I am subbed to GPM for a few years now. I did it first because Spotify was and still isn't available in my country, but I don't think I would switch if they become available tomorrow.
- shostack 9y ago
  I used to use GPM and am now a Spotify customer. For starters, I was annoyed that Google removed some of its playlist interface around the activity-based radios. You'd click an activity and there would be several stations/playlists for different styles of music that were great for that general activity. Loved it. Now I can't find it anywhere. Second is the interface in general. Spotify realizes that especially on mobile, you have limited screen real estate. I really dislike Google's choice to overly emphasize giant thumbnails of album art I'll never care about or recognize, at the expense of not providing a list view for all levels of the hierarchy. This also leads to situations where artist names are truncated beyond recognition because there's only a few characters space for them. The GPM app on my Pixel XL also takes seemingly forever to load and play, podcasts often lose their place, etc. Spotify just works.
  - singingboyo 9y ago
    The album art bit I'll generally agree with, but for the activity bit... not to sound too harsh, but did you even try to find it after they did a minor redesign a while back? Menu ("..." on left in web) > Browse stations > Activities It's right there!
    - shostack 9y ago
      The change occurred ages ago so I might be forgetting details, but what I think was removed was a more curated way of matching stations with the activity, with descriptions for each. Now it is just a ton of radio stations that often seem unrelated, and no upfront description of what it is unless you click through. Just more giant thumbnails I don't need.
on_and_off 9y ago
disclaimer : I worked for a music streaming service for several years I don't really like the Play Music UI (but I don't hate it either, the new parts are very nice, but the album pages could use a bit more love). I dislike the spotify UI though (why is it THAT dark and depressive ?) and play music removes the ads from youtube (us user) and pays youtubers, so that's an easy choice. Oh, the winning feature of Play Music for me is that I can add my own album, even if it does not belong to their catalog. It still shows with all it's metadata and cover as an album.
- apeace 9y ago
  You listed the killer features of Google Music for me: no Youtube ads, auto-pay my favorite Youtubers, and upload my own albums. Also the Youtube Music app. I've found their catalog to be really complete, I've rarely not been able to find something specific I'm looking for. Only advantage I'm hearing from Spotify music users is that the algorithmic selections sound really good. Meh, I put in about an hour a month of surfing different Play Music radio stations and recommendations. Works for me.
  - Lewton 9y ago
    I don’t think it’s possible to really understand how great Spotify’s algorithm is until you’ve experienced it recommending a fantastic song, and you go check the artist out, notice they have less than ten thousand plays and have only released two songs Idk how that’s even possible but it happens once a month for me
    - fossuser 9y ago
      I read it's based on human curation - this is the clever part. If you have songs in your playlist that someone else has in their playlist it'll find a song in that other playlist that you don't have. Offload the complexity of matching to humans already doing it.
      - taneq 9y ago

ishansharma 9y ago

I was an Apple music since launch(till a month back). But once I tried Spotify and the playlists, I switched instantly. While Apple Music is a competitor, it's not everywhere like Spotify is and their recommendations are horrible. In all time using them, I discovered 2 songs that I liked. With 4 weeks on Spotify, I'm already at 25!

joezydeco 9y ago
I've switched to an Amazon ecosystem (dot, fireTv, etc) and Spotify just works seamlessly between them all. I love it. I have to wonder how many users Spotify picked up when Apple blew the christmas HomePod release and Amazon flushed out Alexa-enabled devices at heavy discounts.
- prklmn 9y ago
  The echo dot was the best selling product on amazon over Christmas. Luckily for Apple, I don’t think a $30 device will lock someone into an ecosystem.
  - joezydeco 9y ago
    Man, I don't know. I'm moving away from iOS/Siri/HomeKit/HomePod/iCloud(ugh) instead of moving toward it. It might not be a lock-in, but given my track time on a non-Apple ecosystem and the value I'm getting out of Spotify compared to Apple Music...I'm not going back any time soon. And, yeah: all it took was a $30 device.
timc3 9y ago
As an alternative opinion I used both Apple Music and Spotify. Apple Music’s recommendation has been amazing for me, and Spotifys terrible and I have fairly strange tastes in music (play dark-Berghein techno, but then like exploring as many genres from around the world as possible). If Apple Music was supported in as many places as Spotify I would drop Spotify.

kaftoy 9y ago

I really don't want to change this discussion into a "which is the best music streaming service" debate, but I am really curious, why haven't your considered Google Play Music? Interface? Songs count? Price? I am subbed to GPM for a few years now. I did it first because Spotify was and still isn't available in my country, but I don't think I would switch if they become available tomorrow.

shostack 9y ago
I used to use GPM and am now a Spotify customer. For starters, I was annoyed that Google removed some of its playlist interface around the activity-based radios. You'd click an activity and there would be several stations/playlists for different styles of music that were great for that general activity. Loved it. Now I can't find it anywhere. Second is the interface in general. Spotify realizes that especially on mobile, you have limited screen real estate. I really dislike Google's choice to overly emphasize giant thumbnails of album art I'll never care about or recognize, at the expense of not providing a list view for all levels of the hierarchy. This also leads to situations where artist names are truncated beyond recognition because there's only a few characters space for them. The GPM app on my Pixel XL also takes seemingly forever to load and play, podcasts often lose their place, etc. Spotify just works.
- singingboyo 9y ago
  The album art bit I'll generally agree with, but for the activity bit... not to sound too harsh, but did you even try to find it after they did a minor redesign a while back? Menu ("..." on left in web) > Browse stations > Activities It's right there!
  - shostack 9y ago
    The change occurred ages ago so I might be forgetting details, but what I think was removed was a more curated way of matching stations with the activity, with descriptions for each. Now it is just a ton of radio stations that often seem unrelated, and no upfront description of what it is unless you click through. Just more giant thumbnails I don't need.

on_and_off 9y ago

disclaimer : I worked for a music streaming service for several years I don't really like the Play Music UI (but I don't hate it either, the new parts are very nice, but the album pages could use a bit more love). I dislike the spotify UI though (why is it THAT dark and depressive ?) and play music removes the ads from youtube (us user) and pays youtubers, so that's an easy choice. Oh, the winning feature of Play Music for me is that I can add my own album, even if it does not belong to their catalog. It still shows with all it's metadata and cover as an album.

apeace 9y ago
You listed the killer features of Google Music for me: no Youtube ads, auto-pay my favorite Youtubers, and upload my own albums. Also the Youtube Music app. I've found their catalog to be really complete, I've rarely not been able to find something specific I'm looking for. Only advantage I'm hearing from Spotify music users is that the algorithmic selections sound really good. Meh, I put in about an hour a month of surfing different Play Music radio stations and recommendations. Works for me.
- Lewton 9y ago
  I don’t think it’s possible to really understand how great Spotify’s algorithm is until you’ve experienced it recommending a fantastic song, and you go check the artist out, notice they have less than ten thousand plays and have only released two songs Idk how that’s even possible but it happens once a month for me
  - fossuser 9y ago
    I read it's based on human curation - this is the clever part. If you have songs in your playlist that someone else has in their playlist it'll find a song in that other playlist that you don't have. Offload the complexity of matching to humans already doing it.
    - taneq 9y ago