6 ms·

Every day I'm frustrated by apps that I know were once highly simple and functional. The idea that we're paying for devices and apps that are artificially limi

Every day I'm frustrated by apps that I know were once highly simple and functional. The idea that we're paying for devices and apps that are artificially limited and hobbled by others seeking more profit really has me worried about the future. For example, Winamp ran several years as a music player, although it was not a very profitable operation, it functioned just like every other consumer music player since the 70s, with play, stop, track skipping, fast-forward, shuffle play etc... Now music players have completely screwed up the model for a music player. They more often don't function properly unless a subscription is paid for.... They insert ads into music playlists, they often skip more than one track, they don't truly shuffle music, and they also add a ton of frustration with buffering and connectivity issues into the simple process of listening to music, even when I play my locally stored collection of music on them. The practice of reducing features in something as simple as a music player, a device that is meant for enjoyment shows how grim the concept of a software-driven world should be. Products are rarely solving problems now, they are only introducing new and stupid problems, and not innovating further. It's a huge problem that should be addressed. I'm tired of hobbled functionality, hack the planet. :P

lpapez 5y ago
There are literally hundreds of simple (and open-source) music players out there, including Winamp you mentioned and its offspring. What is preventing you from using those? IMO, this is the same argument like when people say "modern music sucks" without ever searching for amazing new bands outside the mainstream.
- RC_ITR 5y ago
  I think GP is confusing 'I went to the store and bought this CD, and burned it to MP3, which plays for free on Winamp' with 'Winamp was free and now I have to pay for that same experience via streaming.''
  - omgitsabird 5y ago
    With the right attitude, you can rip from streams and play it for free from Winamp. You can also buy a lot of music as an MP3.
- BiteCode_dev 5y ago
  Most people don't have the medium. I have 30Go of music files on my laptop, that I carefull update, and backup. I add to the collection once in a while. But few do that anymore: no cd player in devices, and file systems are being abstracted away remember? So they listen to music on youtube, spotify, soundcloud, etc. They don't own the music, hence they can't chose the player.
  - winternett 5y ago
    YouTube music offered to import my personal music library (on my phone). I declined, because the last time I allowed that to happen on Google Play Music (now retired) it was covertly deleting music from my library, and carefully picking which songs to play every time I used it. You simply can't trust free apps any more. Probably can't even trust many of the paid ones because making people buy the same thing multiple times is more profitable for opportunistic individuals. Keep backups in multiple (independent) locations.
    - BiteCode_dev 5y ago
      Free as in free beer apps no. But FOSS apps are still there for you. VLC is to this day the best video players, across all OS, and can read music. It's as not convenient to play music though.
      - screature2 5y ago
        re:FOSS music players I liked foobar2000 for music, esp. if you wanted to play lossless formats like FLAC files re:parent comment, i feel like the streaming "free" music app/services are more iterations on radio stations rather than iterations on music players since radio has ads, pseudo random playlists, requirement to be "connected" etc. Maybe unpopular opinion, but in comparison w/radio, I tend to think streaming actually looks pretty good.
- ffhhj 5y ago
  When I moved from Windows 11 to Linux, the first thing I looked for was an audio player as simple, fast, full featured, and with small UI that won't occupy a large portion of the screen. I ended running WACUP with Wine and haven't looked back. The compact and stackable UI of Winamp is still the best after all these years, and it just works.
  - wolpoli 5y ago
    That's one thing I missed about programs from years ago - they don't try to take over the entire computer but stay unintrusive as helper/companion.
- winternett 5y ago
  Oh I still have (32 bit) Winamp on my desktop, and it works great when I need it so far... The problem is that as Windows creeps towards 64 bit compatibility only, I'll eventually have to retire the original .exe(s) I've used, and change to something that might be a terrible experience.... Even online reviews and advice about what software to use is corrupted by brigadeers and marketers, so it's a wild west of who you can trust. I appreciate your advice, but you could just as well be a developer trying to encourage me to use your app that may have required in-app purchases (no offence). Another tactic that developers now use is to have a fully functional app in the first-downloaded instance, but then the application slowly degrades as updates occur to encourage an up-sell. As a dev myself, I've directly seen this happen with apps I cannot specifically shame online. I'm primarily referring to mobile apps. I have an SD card with my music library on it. The choice of apps there gets more complex... As phone makers remove SD card functionality, and headphone jacks, and limit out of the box music players, the ability to use my phone for music is also fading. I have had apps corrupt my locally saved music library as well in attempts to force me into buying streaming services perhaps, I no longer trust many services in app stores.
  - motoxpro 5y ago
    All of the stuff your talking about could be solved by not upgrading to the latest X. If you want headphone jacks, etc, etc just search for a phone that has it and that lets you add music to it. If you want a 90s experience you don't HAVE to buy the latest iPhone or download the latest app.
  - bobsmooth 5y ago
    VLC is free and 64-bit. Not the most convenient for playing music but it plays everything. I use MAX Tray Player which is really old but still works. It's this great little program that sits in your taskbar off to the side so it doesn't take up icon or window space. I use it for internet radio and I made a skin for it to match my dark theme. trayplayer.com As for mobile audio I use Spotify but I have a library of mp3s on my SD card that I play with the default Samsung Music app which works just fine. No ads in that so far. If you haven't tried a modern BT 5.0 device, try giving bluetooth another chance.
nexuist 5y ago
> They insert ads into music playlists, they often skip more than one track, they don't truly shuffle music, and they also add a ton of frustration with buffering and connectivity issues into the simple process of listening to music Why are you comparing music players to streaming services? That's like comparing a Honda Civic to a cement mixer. You don't use both to accomplish the same job even if they both have four wheels and a gas pedal.
- winternett 5y ago
  Streaming services leverage playlists, and they insert ads into those playlists. Streaming services like Spotify, are music players by nature obviously...
  - filoleg 5y ago
    You are just being pedantic, while the parent comment offered a fairly useful distinction between those two types of services, even though it might not be the dictionary definition. >Streaming services like Spotify, are music players by nature obviously... Both a cement mixer and a honda civic are vehicles that one can drive on the road by nature. The point still stands that they shouldn't be compared directly, as they serve completely different purposes (despite them both being drivable vehicles).
  - jethro_tell 5y ago
    if you pay for spotify, there are no ads, just like if you paid for your music and a music player there would be no ads. And before you tell me you got your music and player on the high seas, you can still do that so I don't see how anything has changed.
- nitrogen 5y ago
  The "job to be done" is still listening to music on demand.
folkrav 5y ago
Music players were decoding local files and spitting out the output, now they're streaming platforms. Despite fitting the same niche of "I want to listen to music" for many people, they're not selling you the same product at all. AFAIK the local players still exist, many still in active development, for those who want to own their data.
- HotHotLava 5y ago
  The ownership question is orthogonal though, a Sonos speaker is also able to play your self-hosted music collection from a local samba share.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bluescrn 5y ago
Sonos built a great system then destroyed it with greed/planned obsolesence. They shafted so many customers with the S1/S2 incompatibility, leaving so many expensive and perfectly capable 'legacy' systems unable to add new (S2) devices. It was purely to try and force people to upgrade perfectly decent devices, and prematurely turn a whole lot of S1 devices into e-waste. While their products are still good, I wouldn't buy one again for fear of them introducing an S3 and rendering another set of devices obsolete.
- djrogers 5y ago
  I was upset at the time, but in hindsight, and given how they've managed to continue to support both S1 and S2 product lines, I can't really say they did it wrong. Bifurcating your app to continue to provide support for 10+ year old hardware is a lot better than simply EOL'ing said hardware.
  - bluescrn 5y ago
    The problem is that '10 years old' in computing is fairly ancient, whereas in hi-fi, quality hardware will keep going for many decades with minimal maintenance. Not sure why they felt the need to split the app into two rather than support the control of all devices through a single app, even if the S1 devices have a bit less functionality, or if S1 and S2 devices can't be grouped into a single zone. And then they've prevented some new devices from running with the S1 app. My parents tried to buy an extra speaker, but it didn't work with their S1 system (whereas only a few months ago, they added a soundbar that worked fine) It's a mess. It could have been handled a lot better. What new features do you even get with S2 that require more powerful hardware?
    - avianlyric 5y ago
      > What new features do you even get with S2 that require more powerful hardware? * Airplay * Hi-res audio formats * Better onboarding experience (BLE based, and can take advantage of iOS APIs to share Wifi password) * Support for DTS and Dolby Atmos I suspect the reason for bifurcation is because the speakers form a cluster on your network. The apps don’t talk to individual speakers, the speakers elect a cluster leader and the app talks only with the leader. The leader then figures out how to get your command to the target speaker, which may be via your normal wifi, but could also be via the private Sonos Net mesh network the speakers form. They want all the speakers to run exactly the same firmware because it’ll significantly reduce the complexity of their net code. No need to write forward or backwards compatible protocols, every speaks the same language. Side effect of this choice is that your firmware features become limited by your oldest hardware, even with feature flags, binary size could still be an issue for old devices. So this means at some point you need either: 1. Start running two firmware versions, and some how make your net code forward/backwards compatible. Very difficult when dealing with tightly defined high entropy protocols needs for low latency comms, and super tight timing requirements. 2. Split make a set of your devices stuck on old software and incompatible with new hardware. So new and old can no longer join the same cluster. But simplify your net code. Sonos obviously chose option 2, and I can understand why they made that choice. As for the apps, having them communicate with two different Sonos clusters, and somehow merge the UI sounds like a UI nightmare. Not unsolvable, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they tried it, and decided the experience was so crap and confusing, they were better of just making two apps. Given what Sonos do, and rather extreme technical requirements of syncing audio to within a millisecond or two over dodgy wifi connections. I can sympathise with the difficult technical and product decisions that led to S1/S2. I personally doubt it’s an artificial limitation created for cynical profit pumping. But I can totally see it as way of reducing their software development complexity and costs, which is not an unreasonable business decision (Sonos isn’t a charity after all).
tehwebguy 5y ago
You can pick up this bluetooth board for $0.79 + $1.67 shipping to the US and solder it inside of your favorite dumb speakers: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000437975620.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000437975620.html [The red one for sale at the moment doesn't make any sounds when you connect to it, the $0.79 black unit speaks ("now in bluetooth mode") when I connect to it, not great]
- jethro_tell 5y ago
  Bluetooth doesn't really cut it for me in a multi-person household, though If I was on my own I would be fine like that. We have multiple people constantly playing, and multiple locations to play to. Bluetooth is good for a single speaker and single primary playing device but doesn't really solve multi-room multi-user music very well.
  - nitrogen 5y ago
    We really need an open standard for wireless and wired audio distribution, so different brands can interoperate.
    - jethro_tell 5y ago
      Vendor lock in and DRM make media playing such a shit show even 10 years after it should be super simple.

lpapez 5y ago

There are literally hundreds of simple (and open-source) music players out there, including Winamp you mentioned and its offspring. What is preventing you from using those? IMO, this is the same argument like when people say "modern music sucks" without ever searching for amazing new bands outside the mainstream.

RC_ITR 5y ago
I think GP is confusing 'I went to the store and bought this CD, and burned it to MP3, which plays for free on Winamp' with 'Winamp was free and now I have to pay for that same experience via streaming.''
- omgitsabird 5y ago
  With the right attitude, you can rip from streams and play it for free from Winamp. You can also buy a lot of music as an MP3.
BiteCode_dev 5y ago
Most people don't have the medium. I have 30Go of music files on my laptop, that I carefull update, and backup. I add to the collection once in a while. But few do that anymore: no cd player in devices, and file systems are being abstracted away remember? So they listen to music on youtube, spotify, soundcloud, etc. They don't own the music, hence they can't chose the player.
- winternett 5y ago
  YouTube music offered to import my personal music library (on my phone). I declined, because the last time I allowed that to happen on Google Play Music (now retired) it was covertly deleting music from my library, and carefully picking which songs to play every time I used it. You simply can't trust free apps any more. Probably can't even trust many of the paid ones because making people buy the same thing multiple times is more profitable for opportunistic individuals. Keep backups in multiple (independent) locations.
  - BiteCode_dev 5y ago
    Free as in free beer apps no. But FOSS apps are still there for you. VLC is to this day the best video players, across all OS, and can read music. It's as not convenient to play music though.
    - screature2 5y ago
      re:FOSS music players I liked foobar2000 for music, esp. if you wanted to play lossless formats like FLAC files re:parent comment, i feel like the streaming "free" music app/services are more iterations on radio stations rather than iterations on music players since radio has ads, pseudo random playlists, requirement to be "connected" etc. Maybe unpopular opinion, but in comparison w/radio, I tend to think streaming actually looks pretty good.
ffhhj 5y ago
When I moved from Windows 11 to Linux, the first thing I looked for was an audio player as simple, fast, full featured, and with small UI that won't occupy a large portion of the screen. I ended running WACUP with Wine and haven't looked back. The compact and stackable UI of Winamp is still the best after all these years, and it just works.
- wolpoli 5y ago
  That's one thing I missed about programs from years ago - they don't try to take over the entire computer but stay unintrusive as helper/companion.
winternett 5y ago
Oh I still have (32 bit) Winamp on my desktop, and it works great when I need it so far... The problem is that as Windows creeps towards 64 bit compatibility only, I'll eventually have to retire the original .exe(s) I've used, and change to something that might be a terrible experience.... Even online reviews and advice about what software to use is corrupted by brigadeers and marketers, so it's a wild west of who you can trust. I appreciate your advice, but you could just as well be a developer trying to encourage me to use your app that may have required in-app purchases (no offence). Another tactic that developers now use is to have a fully functional app in the first-downloaded instance, but then the application slowly degrades as updates occur to encourage an up-sell. As a dev myself, I've directly seen this happen with apps I cannot specifically shame online. I'm primarily referring to mobile apps. I have an SD card with my music library on it. The choice of apps there gets more complex... As phone makers remove SD card functionality, and headphone jacks, and limit out of the box music players, the ability to use my phone for music is also fading. I have had apps corrupt my locally saved music library as well in attempts to force me into buying streaming services perhaps, I no longer trust many services in app stores.
- motoxpro 5y ago
  All of the stuff your talking about could be solved by not upgrading to the latest X. If you want headphone jacks, etc, etc just search for a phone that has it and that lets you add music to it. If you want a 90s experience you don't HAVE to buy the latest iPhone or download the latest app.
- bobsmooth 5y ago
  VLC is free and 64-bit. Not the most convenient for playing music but it plays everything. I use MAX Tray Player which is really old but still works. It's this great little program that sits in your taskbar off to the side so it doesn't take up icon or window space. I use it for internet radio and I made a skin for it to match my dark theme. trayplayer.com As for mobile audio I use Spotify but I have a library of mp3s on my SD card that I play with the default Samsung Music app which works just fine. No ads in that so far. If you haven't tried a modern BT 5.0 device, try giving bluetooth another chance.

nexuist 5y ago

> They insert ads into music playlists, they often skip more than one track, they don't truly shuffle music, and they also add a ton of frustration with buffering and connectivity issues into the simple process of listening to music Why are you comparing music players to streaming services? That's like comparing a Honda Civic to a cement mixer. You don't use both to accomplish the same job even if they both have four wheels and a gas pedal.

winternett 5y ago
Streaming services leverage playlists, and they insert ads into those playlists. Streaming services like Spotify, are music players by nature obviously...
- filoleg 5y ago
  You are just being pedantic, while the parent comment offered a fairly useful distinction between those two types of services, even though it might not be the dictionary definition. >Streaming services like Spotify, are music players by nature obviously... Both a cement mixer and a honda civic are vehicles that one can drive on the road by nature. The point still stands that they shouldn't be compared directly, as they serve completely different purposes (despite them both being drivable vehicles).
- jethro_tell 5y ago
  if you pay for spotify, there are no ads, just like if you paid for your music and a music player there would be no ads. And before you tell me you got your music and player on the high seas, you can still do that so I don't see how anything has changed.
nitrogen 5y ago
The "job to be done" is still listening to music on demand.

folkrav 5y ago

Music players were decoding local files and spitting out the output, now they're streaming platforms. Despite fitting the same niche of "I want to listen to music" for many people, they're not selling you the same product at all. AFAIK the local players still exist, many still in active development, for those who want to own their data.

HotHotLava 5y ago
The ownership question is orthogonal though, a Sonos speaker is also able to play your self-hosted music collection from a local samba share.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

bluescrn 5y ago

Sonos built a great system then destroyed it with greed/planned obsolesence. They shafted so many customers with the S1/S2 incompatibility, leaving so many expensive and perfectly capable 'legacy' systems unable to add new (S2) devices. It was purely to try and force people to upgrade perfectly decent devices, and prematurely turn a whole lot of S1 devices into e-waste. While their products are still good, I wouldn't buy one again for fear of them introducing an S3 and rendering another set of devices obsolete.

djrogers 5y ago
I was upset at the time, but in hindsight, and given how they've managed to continue to support both S1 and S2 product lines, I can't really say they did it wrong. Bifurcating your app to continue to provide support for 10+ year old hardware is a lot better than simply EOL'ing said hardware.
- bluescrn 5y ago
  The problem is that '10 years old' in computing is fairly ancient, whereas in hi-fi, quality hardware will keep going for many decades with minimal maintenance. Not sure why they felt the need to split the app into two rather than support the control of all devices through a single app, even if the S1 devices have a bit less functionality, or if S1 and S2 devices can't be grouped into a single zone. And then they've prevented some new devices from running with the S1 app. My parents tried to buy an extra speaker, but it didn't work with their S1 system (whereas only a few months ago, they added a soundbar that worked fine) It's a mess. It could have been handled a lot better. What new features do you even get with S2 that require more powerful hardware?
  - avianlyric 5y ago
    > What new features do you even get with S2 that require more powerful hardware? * Airplay * Hi-res audio formats * Better onboarding experience (BLE based, and can take advantage of iOS APIs to share Wifi password) * Support for DTS and Dolby Atmos I suspect the reason for bifurcation is because the speakers form a cluster on your network. The apps don’t talk to individual speakers, the speakers elect a cluster leader and the app talks only with the leader. The leader then figures out how to get your command to the target speaker, which may be via your normal wifi, but could also be via the private Sonos Net mesh network the speakers form. They want all the speakers to run exactly the same firmware because it’ll significantly reduce the complexity of their net code. No need to write forward or backwards compatible protocols, every speaks the same language. Side effect of this choice is that your firmware features become limited by your oldest hardware, even with feature flags, binary size could still be an issue for old devices. So this means at some point you need either: 1. Start running two firmware versions, and some how make your net code forward/backwards compatible. Very difficult when dealing with tightly defined high entropy protocols needs for low latency comms, and super tight timing requirements. 2. Split make a set of your devices stuck on old software and incompatible with new hardware. So new and old can no longer join the same cluster. But simplify your net code. Sonos obviously chose option 2, and I can understand why they made that choice. As for the apps, having them communicate with two different Sonos clusters, and somehow merge the UI sounds like a UI nightmare. Not unsolvable, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they tried it, and decided the experience was so crap and confusing, they were better of just making two apps. Given what Sonos do, and rather extreme technical requirements of syncing audio to within a millisecond or two over dodgy wifi connections. I can sympathise with the difficult technical and product decisions that led to S1/S2. I personally doubt it’s an artificial limitation created for cynical profit pumping. But I can totally see it as way of reducing their software development complexity and costs, which is not an unreasonable business decision (Sonos isn’t a charity after all).

tehwebguy 5y ago

You can pick up this bluetooth board for $0.79 + $1.67 shipping to the US and solder it inside of your favorite dumb speakers: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000437975620.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000437975620.html [The red one for sale at the moment doesn't make any sounds when you connect to it, the $0.79 black unit speaks ("now in bluetooth mode") when I connect to it, not great]

jethro_tell 5y ago
Bluetooth doesn't really cut it for me in a multi-person household, though If I was on my own I would be fine like that. We have multiple people constantly playing, and multiple locations to play to. Bluetooth is good for a single speaker and single primary playing device but doesn't really solve multi-room multi-user music very well.
- nitrogen 5y ago
  We really need an open standard for wireless and wired audio distribution, so different brands can interoperate.
  - jethro_tell 5y ago
    Vendor lock in and DRM make media playing such a shit show even 10 years after it should be super simple.