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Long article for a single comment: I quit Spotify because I can’t customise the home page which pushes podcasts and music I’m not interested in. For me I navig

Long article for a single comment: I quit Spotify because I can’t customise the home page which pushes podcasts and music I’m not interested in. For me I navigate my music via My Liked songs + my own playlists for particular moods. If I open the app and press play it defaults to where I left off. The fact there is a home page which shows options similar to what I like is fine, sometimes useful. Yes I’d prefer to customise it. Yes the recommendations aren’t perfect. Not a reason to quit, I love Spotify and haven’t found a better alternative. The one major gripe is not being able to upload my own songs, I love listening to remixes and covers, youtube, spotify or tiktok has plenty of songs I’d love in my library. But it’s a nightmare for a business model that respects artists and a cost structure that needs to be covered. Again, no real good alternatives that do this well + have a normal library + be legal.

lloydatkinson 3y ago
It's a critique/criticism of a service that has degraded, and why the author understandably is unhappy. What is with the growing trend on HN of just being overly negative about posts that are shared here?
- cantSpellSober 3y ago
  Criticism is welcome, wrapping it in LimeWire nostalgia and extra 20 paragraphs of fluff to make it long enough for a blog post is makes it harder to find.
piva00 3y ago
> The one major gripe is not being able to upload my own songs, I love listening to remixes and covers, youtube, spotify or tiktok has plenty of songs I’d love in my library. But it’s a nightmare for a business model that respects artists and a cost structure that needs to be covered. Again, no real good alternatives that do this well + have a normal library + be legal. But you can, if you have the audio files you can use them as local files [1] in your Spotify library. [1] https://support.spotify.com/us/article/local-files/ https://support.spotify.com/us/article/local-files/
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- boxed 3y ago
  Local files in Spotify is extremely iffy. It has forgot them many times for me. The worst is on iOS where you have to be on the same wifi and wait randomly. And sometimes without warning the files just go away. This is unacceptable. People need to play music for dance, yoga, exercise classes for their job. You can't just randomly throw away the files to have them discover this when the class starts.
  - KaushikR2 3y ago
    I wonder if it would be possible to setup a folder on a remote server, and use that as the directory for local files. Wonder if Spotify would play nice with that.
    - boxed 3y ago
      It doesn't play well with the Files system on iOS afaik..
samsin 3y ago
Uploading music seems to work fine for Apple Music. It’s been a while since I’ve done it, but all the songs I’ve uploaded in the past are still available on all my devices.
number6 3y ago
I quit Spotify for the exact same reason, but I did not blog about it. I tried to host my own alternative, but I realized that it's hard to get the songs nowadays since everything is streamed. So, I switched to Deezer. It's nice that they have some support for local files for songs I already bought elsewhere and that are not on the platform. However, there is something annoying on the Spotify homepage that drove me away...
- ornornor 3y ago
  soulseek has a looooot of music. Even obscure tracks or albums. Lossless, lossy, anything.
srfwx 3y ago
Spicetify solves this homepage issue for all major OS. But sadly not on mobile.
dabluecaboose 3y ago
> Long article for a single comment: I quit Spotify because I can’t customise the home page which pushes podcasts and music I’m not interested in. The "podcast pushing" is an underrated reason to quit; It's why I did. I decided it was effectively a safety issue. I subscribed to Spotify Premium when I bought a car and installed an Android Auto head unit, telling myself "this will basically be my radio and I can control it from the head unit without messing with my phone" The breaking point for me was when I had to scroll past 3-4 rows of podcast suggestions (onto an entire other screen) to find any music on my homepage. At that point, I decided it was unsafe, and began the long, arduous path of going back to 2008 and buying all my music piecemeal to host on PlexAmp. I'm quite happy with the results now, though.
tehnub 3y ago
>The one major gripe is not being able to upload my own songs You can do this on Apple Music. Upload from one device, and it's available to stream on any of your devices. For me it's the main reason I use Apple over Spotify. https://support.apple.com/guide/music/import-items-already-on-your-computer-mus3081/mac https://support.apple.com/guide/music/import-items-already-o...
latentcall 3y ago
I think people get frustrated when services change to try and acquire more revenue, which explains podcasts being shoved down your throat. In regards to Spotify allowing uploading of your own songs, I remember I think they did have that at the beginning. I remember there used to be an option to import your iTunes library on Windows. I uploaded a small collection of MP3's and it worked okay, but was somewhat cumbersome compared to say Foobar or MusicBee.
anderber 3y ago
You might like Deezer, it's very similar to Spotify but with the added bonus of being able to upload your own MP3s.
- artdigital 3y ago
  Apple Music also lets you do that

lloydatkinson 3y ago

It's a critique/criticism of a service that has degraded, and why the author understandably is unhappy. What is with the growing trend on HN of just being overly negative about posts that are shared here?

cantSpellSober 3y ago
Criticism is welcome, wrapping it in LimeWire nostalgia and extra 20 paragraphs of fluff to make it long enough for a blog post is makes it harder to find.

piva00 3y ago

> The one major gripe is not being able to upload my own songs, I love listening to remixes and covers, youtube, spotify or tiktok has plenty of songs I’d love in my library. But it’s a nightmare for a business model that respects artists and a cost structure that needs to be covered. Again, no real good alternatives that do this well + have a normal library + be legal. But you can, if you have the audio files you can use them as local files [1] in your Spotify library. [1] https://support.spotify.com/us/article/local-files/ https://support.spotify.com/us/article/local-files/

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
boxed 3y ago
Local files in Spotify is extremely iffy. It has forgot them many times for me. The worst is on iOS where you have to be on the same wifi and wait randomly. And sometimes without warning the files just go away. This is unacceptable. People need to play music for dance, yoga, exercise classes for their job. You can't just randomly throw away the files to have them discover this when the class starts.
- KaushikR2 3y ago
  I wonder if it would be possible to setup a folder on a remote server, and use that as the directory for local files. Wonder if Spotify would play nice with that.
  - boxed 3y ago
    It doesn't play well with the Files system on iOS afaik..

samsin 3y ago

Uploading music seems to work fine for Apple Music. It’s been a while since I’ve done it, but all the songs I’ve uploaded in the past are still available on all my devices.

number6 3y ago

I quit Spotify for the exact same reason, but I did not blog about it. I tried to host my own alternative, but I realized that it's hard to get the songs nowadays since everything is streamed. So, I switched to Deezer. It's nice that they have some support for local files for songs I already bought elsewhere and that are not on the platform. However, there is something annoying on the Spotify homepage that drove me away...

ornornor 3y ago
soulseek has a looooot of music. Even obscure tracks or albums. Lossless, lossy, anything.

srfwx 3y ago

Spicetify solves this homepage issue for all major OS. But sadly not on mobile.

dabluecaboose 3y ago

> Long article for a single comment: I quit Spotify because I can’t customise the home page which pushes podcasts and music I’m not interested in. The "podcast pushing" is an underrated reason to quit; It's why I did. I decided it was effectively a safety issue. I subscribed to Spotify Premium when I bought a car and installed an Android Auto head unit, telling myself "this will basically be my radio and I can control it from the head unit without messing with my phone" The breaking point for me was when I had to scroll past 3-4 rows of podcast suggestions (onto an entire other screen) to find any music on my homepage. At that point, I decided it was unsafe, and began the long, arduous path of going back to 2008 and buying all my music piecemeal to host on PlexAmp. I'm quite happy with the results now, though.

tehnub 3y ago

>The one major gripe is not being able to upload my own songs You can do this on Apple Music. Upload from one device, and it's available to stream on any of your devices. For me it's the main reason I use Apple over Spotify. https://support.apple.com/guide/music/import-items-already-on-your-computer-mus3081/mac https://support.apple.com/guide/music/import-items-already-o...

latentcall 3y ago

I think people get frustrated when services change to try and acquire more revenue, which explains podcasts being shoved down your throat. In regards to Spotify allowing uploading of your own songs, I remember I think they did have that at the beginning. I remember there used to be an option to import your iTunes library on Windows. I uploaded a small collection of MP3's and it worked okay, but was somewhat cumbersome compared to say Foobar or MusicBee.

anderber 3y ago

You might like Deezer, it's very similar to Spotify but with the added bonus of being able to upload your own MP3s.

artdigital 3y ago
Apple Music also lets you do that