14 ms·

Between the dwindling Netflix catalog and increasingly hostile subscription service experience on Spotify, I have found myself flying the black flag again. I st

Between the dwindling Netflix catalog and increasingly hostile subscription service experience on Spotify, I have found myself flying the black flag again. I still have subscriptions to both, but I will be cancelling them this year. I don't want their shitty analytics payloads, I don't want their shitty anti-adblocker tech. I don't want their shitty tactics of deleting random songs off my playlists. I just want the content I paid for. It's not because I don't want to pay for the content, I'd happily pay 2-3x under the right circumstances. It's because no one wants to take my money and provide the content I want without bundling it with drm, ads, dark patterns, insane region segmentation, and manipulative cross-sell tactics. Whatever arguments were made about piracy detracting from sales are laughable now. The copyright and ad lobbies are detracting from those sales, piracy is just a symptom of the cancer that they are. Sonarr + Couchpotato + Plex + Subsonic is somehow a more consumer-friendly experience than their 'legitimate' counterparts. The fact that the premium subscription cost for those services is more than netflix+spotify, and yet people are willing to pay that much for their piracy, that should be pretty telling to any industry analyst.

Wowfunhappy 8y ago
> It's not because I don't want to pay for the content, I'd happily pay 2-3x under the right circumstances. It's because no one wants to take my money and provide the content I want without bundling it with drm, ads, dark patterns, insane region segmentation. Can't help you with movies/Netflix, but in the case of Spotify, you could go back to buying mp3's. Google Play, Amazon, iTunes (aac format), etc will all sell you DRM Free tracks at $1.30 a piece, and the ad-free songs become yours forever to listen to however you wish.
- bubblethink 8y ago
  mp3s are compressed and lossy. Makes them unsuitable for buying. There are a few sites like bandcamp that sell flacs. Not sure why the big players don't let you buy flacs. It's not like there's an engineering issue. Maybe they get the rights only for lossy files. Edit: Since some will invariably point out that you can't hear flacs, here's a better argument. Even if you prefer lossy music, there are and will be better codecs than mp3. So the choice of encoding should be up to you so that you can choose a better codec in the future if you wish. And mp3 wasn't even free until last year. So until 2018, it was illegal to play mp3s on a free system.
  - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
    Spotify isn't streaming FLACs either.
    - zcid 8y ago
      And you're not paying $1/track for Spotify.
  - schrijver 8y ago
    For recent releases they tend to be available, but you might have to look through many channels: next to Bandcamp Beatport, Qobuz, Juno Download, Bleep, Boomkat are stores I check.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    Then buy the CDs as if you can probably tell the difference. You're just making excuses for not wanting to pay.
    - jeromegv 8y ago
      Yep. At this point now there's so much paid music available in high quality than anyone who says that it's still not good enough is looking for reasons to feel better about themselves for not paying.
      - ghaff 8y ago
        Video is something of a shitshow and I'm somewhat sympathetic to people who don't want to buy a DVD just because Netflix has driven all the local rental places out of business, their own catalog is rotting, and it's not available for even a la carte streaming. Or you have to subscribe to yet another streaming service just to watch one show. But music? There may be corner cases but pretty much any of the big streaming services plus judicious a la carte purchases have you pretty well covered. Personally I do like owning music but then I started from a pretty large collection of physical media.
        8y ago
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- wolco 8y ago
  Netflix offers too much value for a small amount plus the size of movies makes downloading/previewing the throwaway type of netflix shows make it hard to justify the effort to pirate. Spotify always seems less useful compared to winamp if you knew what music you liked or like to download everything from one band who's best days are behind them. A hassle for new stuff but if you want the all of the 'yes' albums the rare shows, interviews spotify just doesn't cut it.
  - 00deadbeef 8y ago
    For me it's the opposite way around. Netflix's UK catalogue is tiny compared to the US, but Spotify always has the music I want. I pay for Spotify, but not Netflix.
    - guitarbill 8y ago
      That might have been true a while back, but Netflix' US catalogue seems seriously small these days due to the fragmentation of video streaming in the US, and them focussing on their own original material (at least some of it is good). Assuming you have Netflix and Prime Video, these days I'm finding more and more occasions when the selection in the UK is bigger (!).
      - 00deadbeef 8y ago
        I might give it another try
    - mancerayder 8y ago
      A bit of a tangent, but the production quality and writing of shows on BBC iPlayer is high compared to Netflix. Netflix shows increasingly feel like they're written for a generic audience, with a lot of mediocre writing and, I hate to say it, a little dose of virtue signaling as well.
  - ianai 8y ago
    Not to neglect that traditional media for music can be found cheaply. I got something like 200 cds of great classical music from the relatives of a passed neighbor. Garage sales and such are great, too. They’re not great for newer music, but there are options.
- IloveHN84 8y ago
  Use Kodi and plugins. Or rent good old DVDs for movies.
- abrowne 8y ago
  Bandcamp is another option. They have multiple download formats, including FLAC. Lately I've been seeing more albums from artists on ("major" indie) labels, not just self-released.
  - twothumbsup 8y ago
    Bandcamp is my favorite service precisely because they include FLAC downloads.
    - rjplatte 8y ago
      This. I've started actually buying music for the first time ever because it sounds so good from Bandcamp.
donatj 8y ago
I mean they’re obviously tracking your every move but I’ve subscribed to Google Music for years and never had any problems. Use it every day.
noxToken 8y ago
Physical media still exists for a lot of music, but I know first-hand that some music, collections/anthologies/compilations and playlists containing some original content are becoming increasingly digital-only. Check for an artist's profile on a music service that allows you to purchase and download the content. Bandcamp (no affiliation) is one such service. Then you can make your own physical or digital backups external to the service. This is less than ideal, but it works for now.
- SteveNuts 8y ago
  Remember, even CDs aren't safe from DRM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk... I guess Vinyl is the only way to go for true security-minded individuals.
  - kwhitefoot 8y ago
    The Sony/BMG rootkits only worked on Windows. I never had any trouble playing them on Linux. I stopped buying all Sony products when I found out what they were trying to do. And that's after half a lifetime of recommending Sony. Idiots.
schrijver 8y ago
Spotify is a great way to discover and browse music; but it kind of goes with the nature of streaming services that your access to their content is neither as reliable or as anonymous as playing files you’ve downloaded. Then again, major labels now provide lossless DRM free files through Qobuz, Juno Download, Beatport etc (although some region localisation still exists, but once you’ve bought the file that no longer affects you). Smaller labels operate through these platforms as well, and through Bandcamp (which is my favourite platform for buying music). So I do think the situation when it comes to legal access to digital music is much better than it ever was.
mwest 8y ago
Bandcamp is definitely my favourite platform for buying music. No DRM, flac format available if that's your thing. Artists can put up both digital and physical merch. Wish they had a more fully-featured experience for streaming music on PC. Downloading to play in foobar is a bit of a faff sometimes!
- MarsAscendant 8y ago
  In case you don't do this already: You can use Bandcamp Downloader [https://github.com/Otiel/BandcampDownloader https://github.com/Otiel/BandcampDownloader] to download the artist's music – including any or all albums and any of the songs – just by entering the addresses of the pages. Might make getting the audio easier, considering you've already paid.
  - rchaud 8y ago
    BC lets users stream every track at least a couple of times before asking you to pay. This 'free plays limit' resets after a few days, so theoretically, you wouldn't have to pay to hear it ever. I like the reminder because I'm more willing to support independent artists, and if I get the prompt for a song I like, why not pay $5-8 or whatever to have it in my collection?
    - dTal 8y ago
      There's a limit? I stream a good bit off Bandcamp and I've never once hit it.
      - elcrawfodor 8y ago
        I believe it's only on mobile
    - reciprocity 8y ago
      Just wanted to mention that any limitation in listening to a track is set by the artist, not Bandcamp. With an artist profile, you can set the number of times people can listen/stream your music before being prompted to buy (I have such a profile).
Legogris 8y ago
I'm curious; what's the hostile subscription service experience you've encountered with Spotify?
- e40 8y ago
  Here's mine, bullet 2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19109437 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19109437
- xtracto 8y ago
  See my previous comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19118498 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19118498 That felt pretty hostile when it happened to me.
module0000 8y ago
>> I have found myself flying the black flag again I'm in the same boat(no pun intended), and also still pay for the subscriptions. I thought that more streaming services and more maturity(time passed) meant this situation would be improving - not degrading.
- tzakrajs 8y ago
  When the business model is to float a huge amount of capital to purchase unsustainable licensing agreements while you become a record label or movie studio — then it makes sense why we are here.
black6 8y ago
There is so much good CC music out there, I don't feel the need to pay for a music service. Amongst Soundcloud, the Free Music Archive, Bandcamp, and Jamendo there are lifetimes of new music available for enjoyment out in the Creative Commons. When I find artists I truly enjoy, I prefer to support them directly.
graeme 8y ago
Apple music is pretty good. Has basically everything I want, and you can add your own music via icloud too. For movies, criterion collection is coming out with a streaming service, if that's your thing. I don't have netflix but I will have that.
- matwood 8y ago
  The trick I use for AM is they have a single user deal $99/12 months. You can almost always find $100 iTunes gift cards for $80-$85 making your effective price $6-$7/month.
  - graeme 8y ago
    Good point. Where do you get them for $80? If you can buy them in a place with good credit card rewards percentage on the gift card it's even lower.
    - matwood 8y ago
      You just have to keep an eye out. My sub renews over Christmas and I got one from PayPal for $80. I think last year Amazon had a lightening deal for $80 (may have been 2 $50 cards for $40 each). $85 is pretty easy to find though. I think PayPal just had a deal earlier this week.
zamalek 8y ago
> It's because no one wants to take my money and provide the content I want without bundling it with drm, ads, dark patterns, insane region segmentation, and manipulative cross-sell tactics. I'm not sure if they'd satisfy these requirements, but I generally open paid Hulu more than I do Netflix. Google Play Music seems to cover everything Spotify does and there is no free option (so there are never ads), but it's Google, so it could go the way of Reader at any point.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
neivin 8y ago
I canceled Netflix a few months ago. Their catalog is really garbage now. Feels great flying the black flag again with Plex.
- praneshp 8y ago
  > I canceled Netflix a few months ago. Their catalog is really garbage now. weird, I just upp-ed the screen limit after 6 years because there are so many awesome new things that my wife and I want to watch independently.
- matwood 8y ago
  > I canceled Netflix a few months ago. Their catalog is really garbage now. I keep reading this and wonder how much TV watching do people do daily? Netflix already has more content than I will ever get to with just the back catalog of TV shows and originals. It does not even count movies.
whalesalad 8y ago
> hostile subscription service experience on Spotify ??? I pay $14.99 a mo and my wife and I enjoy as much music as we can stomach. It's the one subscription I never even think about. Their service never goes down and they are constantly trying to improve the product. > Sonarr + Couchpotato + Plex + Subsonic is somehow a more consumer-friendly experience than their 'legitimate' counterparts. ??? If you have the time to configure all of that stuff (and support it, and find pirated content) you need to seriously up your billable rate and reconsider the value of your time. Then again if you just enjoy doing it yourself and running your own gear, that is fine too, but admit it. I don't think this has anything to do with the market being hostile.
xtracto 8y ago
So... I had a Spotify family subscription for me and my wife (2 persons... of course living under the same roof). Suddenly my wife lost her spotify premium functionality and asked me if I had cancelled. Turns out Spotify invalidated her as part of my family plan and asked me to add her again. Cool.... I go to the config to add her and Spotify asks for her address and does not let me add her when putting her/my address... I don't remember what address did I enter when I opened spotify more than 5 years ago, and the stupid thing does not let you see your address (like, 1 field in a database, how hard is that?) https://community.spotify.com/t5/Accounts/How-can-I-check-my-home-address/td-p/1547387 https://community.spotify.com/t5/Accounts/How-can-I-check-my... Needless to say, I cancelled Spotify Family premium and went to Google Play Family plan. Great deal if you tell me.

Wowfunhappy 8y ago

> It's not because I don't want to pay for the content, I'd happily pay 2-3x under the right circumstances. It's because no one wants to take my money and provide the content I want without bundling it with drm, ads, dark patterns, insane region segmentation. Can't help you with movies/Netflix, but in the case of Spotify, you could go back to buying mp3's. Google Play, Amazon, iTunes (aac format), etc will all sell you DRM Free tracks at $1.30 a piece, and the ad-free songs become yours forever to listen to however you wish.

bubblethink 8y ago
mp3s are compressed and lossy. Makes them unsuitable for buying. There are a few sites like bandcamp that sell flacs. Not sure why the big players don't let you buy flacs. It's not like there's an engineering issue. Maybe they get the rights only for lossy files. Edit: Since some will invariably point out that you can't hear flacs, here's a better argument. Even if you prefer lossy music, there are and will be better codecs than mp3. So the choice of encoding should be up to you so that you can choose a better codec in the future if you wish. And mp3 wasn't even free until last year. So until 2018, it was illegal to play mp3s on a free system.
- Wowfunhappy 8y ago
  Spotify isn't streaming FLACs either.
  - zcid 8y ago
    And you're not paying $1/track for Spotify.
- schrijver 8y ago
  For recent releases they tend to be available, but you might have to look through many channels: next to Bandcamp Beatport, Qobuz, Juno Download, Bleep, Boomkat are stores I check.
- ghaff 8y ago
  Then buy the CDs as if you can probably tell the difference. You're just making excuses for not wanting to pay.
  - jeromegv 8y ago
    Yep. At this point now there's so much paid music available in high quality than anyone who says that it's still not good enough is looking for reasons to feel better about themselves for not paying.
    - ghaff 8y ago
      Video is something of a shitshow and I'm somewhat sympathetic to people who don't want to buy a DVD just because Netflix has driven all the local rental places out of business, their own catalog is rotting, and it's not available for even a la carte streaming. Or you have to subscribe to yet another streaming service just to watch one show. But music? There may be corner cases but pretty much any of the big streaming services plus judicious a la carte purchases have you pretty well covered. Personally I do like owning music but then I started from a pretty large collection of physical media.
      - 8y ago
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
wolco 8y ago
Netflix offers too much value for a small amount plus the size of movies makes downloading/previewing the throwaway type of netflix shows make it hard to justify the effort to pirate. Spotify always seems less useful compared to winamp if you knew what music you liked or like to download everything from one band who's best days are behind them. A hassle for new stuff but if you want the all of the 'yes' albums the rare shows, interviews spotify just doesn't cut it.
- 00deadbeef 8y ago
  For me it's the opposite way around. Netflix's UK catalogue is tiny compared to the US, but Spotify always has the music I want. I pay for Spotify, but not Netflix.
  - guitarbill 8y ago
    That might have been true a while back, but Netflix' US catalogue seems seriously small these days due to the fragmentation of video streaming in the US, and them focussing on their own original material (at least some of it is good). Assuming you have Netflix and Prime Video, these days I'm finding more and more occasions when the selection in the UK is bigger (!).
    - 00deadbeef 8y ago
      I might give it another try
  - mancerayder 8y ago
    A bit of a tangent, but the production quality and writing of shows on BBC iPlayer is high compared to Netflix. Netflix shows increasingly feel like they're written for a generic audience, with a lot of mediocre writing and, I hate to say it, a little dose of virtue signaling as well.
- ianai 8y ago
  Not to neglect that traditional media for music can be found cheaply. I got something like 200 cds of great classical music from the relatives of a passed neighbor. Garage sales and such are great, too. They’re not great for newer music, but there are options.
IloveHN84 8y ago
Use Kodi and plugins. Or rent good old DVDs for movies.
abrowne 8y ago
Bandcamp is another option. They have multiple download formats, including FLAC. Lately I've been seeing more albums from artists on ("major" indie) labels, not just self-released.
- twothumbsup 8y ago
  Bandcamp is my favorite service precisely because they include FLAC downloads.
  - rjplatte 8y ago
    This. I've started actually buying music for the first time ever because it sounds so good from Bandcamp.

donatj 8y ago

I mean they’re obviously tracking your every move but I’ve subscribed to Google Music for years and never had any problems. Use it every day.

noxToken 8y ago

Physical media still exists for a lot of music, but I know first-hand that some music, collections/anthologies/compilations and playlists containing some original content are becoming increasingly digital-only. Check for an artist's profile on a music service that allows you to purchase and download the content. Bandcamp (no affiliation) is one such service. Then you can make your own physical or digital backups external to the service. This is less than ideal, but it works for now.

SteveNuts 8y ago
Remember, even CDs aren't safe from DRM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk... I guess Vinyl is the only way to go for true security-minded individuals.
- kwhitefoot 8y ago
  The Sony/BMG rootkits only worked on Windows. I never had any trouble playing them on Linux. I stopped buying all Sony products when I found out what they were trying to do. And that's after half a lifetime of recommending Sony. Idiots.

schrijver 8y ago

Spotify is a great way to discover and browse music; but it kind of goes with the nature of streaming services that your access to their content is neither as reliable or as anonymous as playing files you’ve downloaded. Then again, major labels now provide lossless DRM free files through Qobuz, Juno Download, Beatport etc (although some region localisation still exists, but once you’ve bought the file that no longer affects you). Smaller labels operate through these platforms as well, and through Bandcamp (which is my favourite platform for buying music). So I do think the situation when it comes to legal access to digital music is much better than it ever was.

mwest 8y ago

Bandcamp is definitely my favourite platform for buying music. No DRM, flac format available if that's your thing. Artists can put up both digital and physical merch. Wish they had a more fully-featured experience for streaming music on PC. Downloading to play in foobar is a bit of a faff sometimes!

MarsAscendant 8y ago
In case you don't do this already: You can use Bandcamp Downloader [https://github.com/Otiel/BandcampDownloader https://github.com/Otiel/BandcampDownloader] to download the artist's music – including any or all albums and any of the songs – just by entering the addresses of the pages. Might make getting the audio easier, considering you've already paid.
- rchaud 8y ago
  BC lets users stream every track at least a couple of times before asking you to pay. This 'free plays limit' resets after a few days, so theoretically, you wouldn't have to pay to hear it ever. I like the reminder because I'm more willing to support independent artists, and if I get the prompt for a song I like, why not pay $5-8 or whatever to have it in my collection?
  - dTal 8y ago
    There's a limit? I stream a good bit off Bandcamp and I've never once hit it.
    - elcrawfodor 8y ago
      I believe it's only on mobile
  - reciprocity 8y ago
    Just wanted to mention that any limitation in listening to a track is set by the artist, not Bandcamp. With an artist profile, you can set the number of times people can listen/stream your music before being prompted to buy (I have such a profile).

Legogris 8y ago

I'm curious; what's the hostile subscription service experience you've encountered with Spotify?

e40 8y ago
Here's mine, bullet 2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19109437 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19109437
xtracto 8y ago
See my previous comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19118498 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19118498 That felt pretty hostile when it happened to me.

module0000 8y ago

>> I have found myself flying the black flag again I'm in the same boat(no pun intended), and also still pay for the subscriptions. I thought that more streaming services and more maturity(time passed) meant this situation would be improving - not degrading.

tzakrajs 8y ago
When the business model is to float a huge amount of capital to purchase unsustainable licensing agreements while you become a record label or movie studio — then it makes sense why we are here.

black6 8y ago

There is so much good CC music out there, I don't feel the need to pay for a music service. Amongst Soundcloud, the Free Music Archive, Bandcamp, and Jamendo there are lifetimes of new music available for enjoyment out in the Creative Commons. When I find artists I truly enjoy, I prefer to support them directly.

graeme 8y ago

Apple music is pretty good. Has basically everything I want, and you can add your own music via icloud too. For movies, criterion collection is coming out with a streaming service, if that's your thing. I don't have netflix but I will have that.

matwood 8y ago
The trick I use for AM is they have a single user deal $99/12 months. You can almost always find $100 iTunes gift cards for $80-$85 making your effective price $6-$7/month.
- graeme 8y ago
  Good point. Where do you get them for $80? If you can buy them in a place with good credit card rewards percentage on the gift card it's even lower.
  - matwood 8y ago
    You just have to keep an eye out. My sub renews over Christmas and I got one from PayPal for $80. I think last year Amazon had a lightening deal for $80 (may have been 2 $50 cards for $40 each). $85 is pretty easy to find though. I think PayPal just had a deal earlier this week.

zamalek 8y ago

> It's because no one wants to take my money and provide the content I want without bundling it with drm, ads, dark patterns, insane region segmentation, and manipulative cross-sell tactics. I'm not sure if they'd satisfy these requirements, but I generally open paid Hulu more than I do Netflix. Google Play Music seems to cover everything Spotify does and there is no free option (so there are never ads), but it's Google, so it could go the way of Reader at any point.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

neivin 8y ago

I canceled Netflix a few months ago. Their catalog is really garbage now. Feels great flying the black flag again with Plex.

praneshp 8y ago
> I canceled Netflix a few months ago. Their catalog is really garbage now. weird, I just upp-ed the screen limit after 6 years because there are so many awesome new things that my wife and I want to watch independently.
matwood 8y ago
> I canceled Netflix a few months ago. Their catalog is really garbage now. I keep reading this and wonder how much TV watching do people do daily? Netflix already has more content than I will ever get to with just the back catalog of TV shows and originals. It does not even count movies.

whalesalad 8y ago

> hostile subscription service experience on Spotify ??? I pay $14.99 a mo and my wife and I enjoy as much music as we can stomach. It's the one subscription I never even think about. Their service never goes down and they are constantly trying to improve the product. > Sonarr + Couchpotato + Plex + Subsonic is somehow a more consumer-friendly experience than their 'legitimate' counterparts. ??? If you have the time to configure all of that stuff (and support it, and find pirated content) you need to seriously up your billable rate and reconsider the value of your time. Then again if you just enjoy doing it yourself and running your own gear, that is fine too, but admit it. I don't think this has anything to do with the market being hostile.

xtracto 8y ago

So... I had a Spotify family subscription for me and my wife (2 persons... of course living under the same roof). Suddenly my wife lost her spotify premium functionality and asked me if I had cancelled. Turns out Spotify invalidated her as part of my family plan and asked me to add her again. Cool.... I go to the config to add her and Spotify asks for her address and does not let me add her when putting her/my address... I don't remember what address did I enter when I opened spotify more than 5 years ago, and the stupid thing does not let you see your address (like, 1 field in a database, how hard is that?) https://community.spotify.com/t5/Accounts/How-can-I-check-my-home-address/td-p/1547387 https://community.spotify.com/t5/Accounts/How-can-I-check-my... Needless to say, I cancelled Spotify Family premium and went to Google Play Family plan. Great deal if you tell me.