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This is a bit off-topic, but: am I just dim or could the README be a bit more informative? What it's for, who it's for, etc. (I'll give partial blame to me or g

This is a bit off-topic, but: am I just dim or could the README be a bit more informative? What it's for, who it's for, etc. (I'll give partial blame to me or github for the About section/link being there... it's offscreen by the start of the README, so I missed it) (I also... don't use spotify... so had less-than-average context to guess the purpose of this project with.)

spondyl 2y ago
Anecdotally speaking, Spotify has become a sort of cultural default for a bunch of people. If you're in a DM or a group chat, you may not hear "You should listen to X by Y" but rather "Check this out: https://open.spotify.com/blah https://open.spotify.com/blah" At my current workplace and a previous one, both had Slack channels for sharing music and they were 99% Spotify links. Partly because of genuine Spotify usage but even not using Spotify at the time, I would find the Spotify equivalent for my own recommendations (to reduce friction for the majority so they'd be more likely to actually listen to the recommendation) Presumably for those few users not using Spotify, rather than having to find the equivalent song via text search, which may or may not contain a result for Provider Z, this service straight up just converts the Spotify link you've been given into all of the other provider equivalents.
- wintermutestwin 2y ago
  Apple Music = few users?? From what I could tell when choosing AM over Spotify, the latter has a lot of playlists for discovery and I would never use my streaming service for discovery as it encourages the service to promote music it is paid to promote. Of course AM is annoying too because 3 out of 5 navigation icons along the bottom of the UI are for discovery. But AM has Siri integration, which works some of the time… :-/
  - kcrwfrd_ 2y ago
    Apple Music also integrates with your own music library, which is the killer feature for me.
    - dustincoates 2y ago
      As does YouTube Music
      - cwillu 2y ago
        I've had songs I uploaded later disappear due to their changing agreements with music providers. A google take-out contained the missing files so I was able to recover them, but I'll never again rely on such an integration.
        dustincoates 2y ago
        Could it be hidden behind the "Uploads" section? I have a lot of songs that I've uploaded that aren't available on YouTube, but they don't show up unless you go out of your way to find them in their dedicated section.
    - Kiro 2y ago
      Doesn't Spotify as well?
      - freetonik 2y ago
        Not really. Spotify's "add your music" feature has always been an afterthought, it's clunky and inconvenient. It doesn't really store your files in Cloud, like Apple Music does; it just allows you to access local files per device.
        nobody9999 2y ago
        >It doesn't really store your files in Cloud, like Apple Music does; it just allows you to access local files per device. Perhaps things have changed, but 10 or so years ago I "uploaded" my music to Spotify and it didn't actually upload anything, nor did it play my local music. Rather, spotify used whatever it had in its database with the same name/artist, which wasn't always the same recording or even the same song. And then there were the ads. No thanks. I have my own library of more than 22,000 tracks and use Winamp, Jellyfin and VLC to play them wherever I happen to be. No muss, no fuss, and most importantly, no ads.
  - freetanga 2y ago
    I find the user experience of Apple Music to be subpar, and keeps pushing young genres in which I have zero interest. I use Cider on my desktop but mobile is still a challenge.
    - theshrike79 2y ago
      On the other hand Spotify has literal porn on it along with Joe Rogan.
      - shiroiushi 2y ago
        Then it's easy to see why Spotify is so popular in America these days...
  - freetonik 2y ago
    Apple Music has been utterly awful on desktop for years, with virtually zero positive progress. I made this angry video [1] 4 years ago, and have tried using Apple Music multiple times since then, and it never failed to disappoint. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE8ZikfrpFU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE8ZikfrpFU
    - shiroiushi 2y ago
      Does Apple care though? It seems that Apple's main focus these days is on mobile "lifestyle" devices and services: iPhone, Siri, and Apple Music fits right into that. How many Apple users actually care about listening to AM on their desktop (presumably a Mac)? Of course, Apple still pushes its overpriced Macs, but the focus there seems to be on developers (for the more expensive stuff--big monitors, workstations, etc.) or people (probably corporate workers, developers, etc.) using MacBooks. In both cases, the focus seems to be on machines used for doing work. I'm just guessing, but I would guess that most MacOS users who want to listen to (Apple) music would do so on their personal device, i.e. their iPhone, rather than their MacOS device which is probably owned and managed by their employer.
    - saagarjha 2y ago
      Oh my god you made this video? I have sent it to so many people to explain my feelings for it. Thank you so much for saying what I wanted to but so much better!
      - freetonik 2y ago
        You're welcome. I made that channel with the intention of making more videos about other apps and products, but so far could only muster Apple Music :)
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - submeta 2y ago
      You are spot on. Apple does one thing very good: MacOS + Macs. But I don’t like Apple software. Too limited, too crippled, too unpredictable. And they don’t listen to users, you cannot reach out to someone and hope your feedback will change something.
  - rumori 2y ago
    I used to use Apple Music but when my Credit Card expired I missed two months payment and Apple happily deleted all of my playlists and library. I don’t think they realise how bad this is, but I will never use it or subscribe ever again.
    - BoredPositron 2y ago
      You missed two months of payment and you are angry that a company closed the account? Boy do I have to tell you a story about what you can lose by not paying your AWS bill for two months… I am curious how you handle customers that do not pay and continue to not pay instead of just ending their subscription.
      - piva00 2y ago
        In many places I worked we would keep a user's history on the app for a long while in case they decided to resubscribe. It doesn't cost much to have a 6-12 months leeway before complete deletion. Erasing a music app data after just a couple of months is idiotic, even more for a company with such deep pockets like Apple.
      - oarsinsync 2y ago
        I stopped paying for Spotify for 3 years, didn’t login for 2 of those years, came back and my playlists were all still there. My annual Apple Music subscription lapsed for one day, and my entire library was gone the next day when I resubscribed for another year. Apple are allowed to make whatever customer hostile choices they want. As a former Apple Music customer, I’m not making that mistake again.
      - senpos 2y ago
        What do you lose if you don’t pay to AWS for two months? My account is still there. I can still use it. I am pretty sure it has some historic data there as well. Probably my old lambdas are still laying around.
      - vbezhenar 2y ago
        AWS has to pay a relatively big money for keeping user data. It is understandable why they would want to delete it. Playlists are basically zero cost to store. You would spend more $ on delete processing than keeping them around for eternity. So it's just not well thought use-case, implemented without attempt to view the whole picture.
- bryanrasmussen 2y ago
  Spotify doesn't require you to create an account to hear a song from what I recall, so why wouldn't someone send you a link? That's what the web is for. That said once you have heard it on Spotify, yeah you might want it on your service provider of choice so as to add it to whatever equivalent of playlists there are.
  - gloosx 2y ago
    You can just try any link in incognito mode to find out that is not true. Spotify is a walled garden
  - SpotifyClosed 2y ago
    The previous comment was already absurdly america-centric. But with this response, the cake is taken. I have never been sent a spotify link, nor do people really over here, because you need an account.
    - jeltz 2y ago
      Isn't your comment also America centric? Spotify is huge in more countries than the US.
    - spondyl 2y ago
      If you meant me, I live in New Zealand funnily enough.
    - bryanrasmussen 2y ago
      sorry, it's been so long since I didn't have an account so I went and checked and I guess I was wrong they do require you to create a free account to hear the link you've been sent. You'd think my comment assuming you didn't need an account was already absurdly wrong but with your response the cake was taken, because I'm not from America either.
- nextlevelwizard 2y ago
  Do the spotify links not just open the song in some kind of web app if you dont have spotify installed? I always thought giving a straight link to the thing was better for all. If they had Spotify it would open there and without ads if they had the subscription and if they had neither it would still open the web app and let them listen to it with ads and stuff.
  - Cthulhu_ 2y ago
    Yeah, the generated preview (depending on what application the link is shared in) can play a 30 second sample, but if you want to listen to the whole song you need to have an account, and if you don't have a subscription you'll likely get an ad first. It's why I often share a youtube link instead, it plays inline a lot of the time and when it plays inline it often doesn't have ads. But that may also be because I have an effective ad blocker (for now).
  - fragmede 2y ago
    That was true in the past but it's no longer true. I don't know when it changed.
    - Semaphor 2y ago
      That’s absolutely still true. I just disabled Spotify app link handling, and then Spotify opens in Firefox on my phone. And on Desktop it works the same way. edit: misread parts of grandparent. Yeah, the 30s previews are gone, didn’t even realize anyone used those.
      - fragmede 2y ago
        When I open a Spotify link as a webpage, I can't play that song unless I have an account. At some point in the past you didn't have to.
        jorvi 2y ago
        You always had to, in the past it gave a 30s preview. It still does that in Discord.
- Semaphor 2y ago
  I’m in a dedicated music discord, about 70% of links are Bandcamp, 20% Spotify, 10% Tidal. BC percentage could be higher, but good enough, most of the time it’s only for those weird bands that don’t sell on BC anyway ;) That said, I do miss Songwhip. It was a website where you could search for a release, and then generate all links for it, including streaming services and bandcamp.
  - tschumacher 2y ago
    I miss Songwhip as well. We used to have a bot in our music sharing Discord channel that looks for links to any streaming platform and convert them to Songwhip links via the Songwhip API. The good thing about Tidal is that, like Songwhip, it provides you with a list of links to various streaming platforms when you're not logged in.
    - Semaphor 2y ago
      Wish it had been open sourced, it worked so well. Or even better, if Bandcamp offered an API, so sites likes SW wouldn’t need to (probably) scrape that information. > The good thing about Tidal Can’t confirm, it’s worse than spotify for me, as I get an unclosable modal that asks me to sign up or login.
      - tschumacher 2y ago
        > Can’t confirm Try this link https://tidal.com/browse/track/18835695/u https://tidal.com/browse/track/18835695/u, for me it shows a list of links to other services: https://imgur.com/a/MEsaIZw https://imgur.com/a/MEsaIZw
        Semaphor 2y ago
        Yeah, this one does, I guess you have to create a special link? Or is it only for tracks?
    - cjaackie 2y ago
      It was such a beautiful ui and ux , elegant really. It’s a shame yet I wonder how could it have been profitable. There’s really not a whole lot to monetize unless I’m missing something.
- adastra22 2y ago
  Huh, ok. Thanks for explaining. I just don’t listen to music, full stop. Never used Spotify in my life, or any other streaming music service. Was really confused about all of this.
- antonvs 2y ago
  > for those few users not using Spotify That's quite the extrapolation from your anecdotal experience. Technically, it would be more accurate to say, "for those few users using Spotify." What you've noticed is that Spotify has the biggest market share, but that doesn't mean that the number of users not using it are "few". According to https://explodingtopics.com/blog/music-streaming-stats https://explodingtopics.com/blog/music-streaming-stats, Spotify has a 30% market share. That implies that up to 70% of streaming music users aren't regular Spotify users.
sweca 2y ago
the repository description sums it up already: Effortlessly convert Spotify links to your preferred streaming service
- emsixteen 2y ago
  Honestly doesn't sum it up very well, given that it doesn't even mention that it's an extension.
atoav 2y ago
Yeah, but as I musician they pay you next to nothing unless you're already on top anyways. I know touring musicians who can comfortably live from their physical record/merch sales who say they can basically ignore their spotify revenue since they earn more with their merch sales on one concert than they earn during a whole year of running on spotify. So if you care about your musicians consider seeking out other ways to get your records, e.g. bandcamp
- richrichardsson 2y ago
  > as I musician they pay you next to nothing unless you're already on top anyways More like "as a musician they pay you literally nothing for a song unless it receives 1000 streams/12 months". This is total bullshit for small musicians.
grishka 2y ago
The readme also doesn't specify how to set up the development environment. I'd like to make a PR adding support for the two Russian streaming services most people here use, VKontakte and Yandex Music, and the code looks simple enough, but I have no idea how do I actually run it. It probably involves some npm commands?
- lewispollard 2y ago
  Looks like a pretty standard npm-based application, so just clone the repo, run `npm install` and then `npm run dev` (see `package.json` scripts section for available commands to use with `npm run`)
WhyNotHugo 2y ago
The project description on the right hand sidebar says a lot more: > Effortlessly convert Spotify links to your preferred streaming service
- gertlex 2y ago
  That's one sentence; it's a good sentence, but it's not a lot. Nothing about running it. And I already noted (in a very offhand way): > the About section/link being there... it's offscreen by the start of the README, so I missed it I think 10 years ago, that sidebar didn't exist on github, so I've got some old skimming habits I could modify... but I think the bar for READMEs should be higher. I was pleasantly surprised to see I wasn't alone in having too little info, though. This project is far far from being an outlier in this regards. 95% of ROS repos (robotics code packages) are worse :)
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

spondyl 2y ago

Anecdotally speaking, Spotify has become a sort of cultural default for a bunch of people. If you're in a DM or a group chat, you may not hear "You should listen to X by Y" but rather "Check this out: https://open.spotify.com/blah https://open.spotify.com/blah" At my current workplace and a previous one, both had Slack channels for sharing music and they were 99% Spotify links. Partly because of genuine Spotify usage but even not using Spotify at the time, I would find the Spotify equivalent for my own recommendations (to reduce friction for the majority so they'd be more likely to actually listen to the recommendation) Presumably for those few users not using Spotify, rather than having to find the equivalent song via text search, which may or may not contain a result for Provider Z, this service straight up just converts the Spotify link you've been given into all of the other provider equivalents.

wintermutestwin 2y ago
Apple Music = few users?? From what I could tell when choosing AM over Spotify, the latter has a lot of playlists for discovery and I would never use my streaming service for discovery as it encourages the service to promote music it is paid to promote. Of course AM is annoying too because 3 out of 5 navigation icons along the bottom of the UI are for discovery. But AM has Siri integration, which works some of the time… :-/
- kcrwfrd_ 2y ago
  Apple Music also integrates with your own music library, which is the killer feature for me.
  - dustincoates 2y ago
    As does YouTube Music
    - cwillu 2y ago
      I've had songs I uploaded later disappear due to their changing agreements with music providers. A google take-out contained the missing files so I was able to recover them, but I'll never again rely on such an integration.
      - dustincoates 2y ago
        Could it be hidden behind the "Uploads" section? I have a lot of songs that I've uploaded that aren't available on YouTube, but they don't show up unless you go out of your way to find them in their dedicated section.
  - Kiro 2y ago
    Doesn't Spotify as well?
    - freetonik 2y ago
      Not really. Spotify's "add your music" feature has always been an afterthought, it's clunky and inconvenient. It doesn't really store your files in Cloud, like Apple Music does; it just allows you to access local files per device.
      - nobody9999 2y ago
        >It doesn't really store your files in Cloud, like Apple Music does; it just allows you to access local files per device. Perhaps things have changed, but 10 or so years ago I "uploaded" my music to Spotify and it didn't actually upload anything, nor did it play my local music. Rather, spotify used whatever it had in its database with the same name/artist, which wasn't always the same recording or even the same song. And then there were the ads. No thanks. I have my own library of more than 22,000 tracks and use Winamp, Jellyfin and VLC to play them wherever I happen to be. No muss, no fuss, and most importantly, no ads.
- freetanga 2y ago
  I find the user experience of Apple Music to be subpar, and keeps pushing young genres in which I have zero interest. I use Cider on my desktop but mobile is still a challenge.
  - theshrike79 2y ago
    On the other hand Spotify has literal porn on it along with Joe Rogan.
    - shiroiushi 2y ago
      Then it's easy to see why Spotify is so popular in America these days...
- freetonik 2y ago
  Apple Music has been utterly awful on desktop for years, with virtually zero positive progress. I made this angry video [1] 4 years ago, and have tried using Apple Music multiple times since then, and it never failed to disappoint. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE8ZikfrpFU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE8ZikfrpFU
  - shiroiushi 2y ago
    Does Apple care though? It seems that Apple's main focus these days is on mobile "lifestyle" devices and services: iPhone, Siri, and Apple Music fits right into that. How many Apple users actually care about listening to AM on their desktop (presumably a Mac)? Of course, Apple still pushes its overpriced Macs, but the focus there seems to be on developers (for the more expensive stuff--big monitors, workstations, etc.) or people (probably corporate workers, developers, etc.) using MacBooks. In both cases, the focus seems to be on machines used for doing work. I'm just guessing, but I would guess that most MacOS users who want to listen to (Apple) music would do so on their personal device, i.e. their iPhone, rather than their MacOS device which is probably owned and managed by their employer.
  - saagarjha 2y ago
    Oh my god you made this video? I have sent it to so many people to explain my feelings for it. Thank you so much for saying what I wanted to but so much better!
    - freetonik 2y ago
      You're welcome. I made that channel with the intention of making more videos about other apps and products, but so far could only muster Apple Music :)
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - submeta 2y ago
    You are spot on. Apple does one thing very good: MacOS + Macs. But I don’t like Apple software. Too limited, too crippled, too unpredictable. And they don’t listen to users, you cannot reach out to someone and hope your feedback will change something.
- rumori 2y ago
  I used to use Apple Music but when my Credit Card expired I missed two months payment and Apple happily deleted all of my playlists and library. I don’t think they realise how bad this is, but I will never use it or subscribe ever again.
  - BoredPositron 2y ago
    You missed two months of payment and you are angry that a company closed the account? Boy do I have to tell you a story about what you can lose by not paying your AWS bill for two months… I am curious how you handle customers that do not pay and continue to not pay instead of just ending their subscription.
    - piva00 2y ago
      In many places I worked we would keep a user's history on the app for a long while in case they decided to resubscribe. It doesn't cost much to have a 6-12 months leeway before complete deletion. Erasing a music app data after just a couple of months is idiotic, even more for a company with such deep pockets like Apple.
    - oarsinsync 2y ago
      I stopped paying for Spotify for 3 years, didn’t login for 2 of those years, came back and my playlists were all still there. My annual Apple Music subscription lapsed for one day, and my entire library was gone the next day when I resubscribed for another year. Apple are allowed to make whatever customer hostile choices they want. As a former Apple Music customer, I’m not making that mistake again.
    - senpos 2y ago
      What do you lose if you don’t pay to AWS for two months? My account is still there. I can still use it. I am pretty sure it has some historic data there as well. Probably my old lambdas are still laying around.
    - vbezhenar 2y ago
      AWS has to pay a relatively big money for keeping user data. It is understandable why they would want to delete it. Playlists are basically zero cost to store. You would spend more $ on delete processing than keeping them around for eternity. So it's just not well thought use-case, implemented without attempt to view the whole picture.
bryanrasmussen 2y ago
Spotify doesn't require you to create an account to hear a song from what I recall, so why wouldn't someone send you a link? That's what the web is for. That said once you have heard it on Spotify, yeah you might want it on your service provider of choice so as to add it to whatever equivalent of playlists there are.
- gloosx 2y ago
  You can just try any link in incognito mode to find out that is not true. Spotify is a walled garden
- SpotifyClosed 2y ago
  The previous comment was already absurdly america-centric. But with this response, the cake is taken. I have never been sent a spotify link, nor do people really over here, because you need an account.
  - jeltz 2y ago
    Isn't your comment also America centric? Spotify is huge in more countries than the US.
  - spondyl 2y ago
    If you meant me, I live in New Zealand funnily enough.
  - bryanrasmussen 2y ago
    sorry, it's been so long since I didn't have an account so I went and checked and I guess I was wrong they do require you to create a free account to hear the link you've been sent. You'd think my comment assuming you didn't need an account was already absurdly wrong but with your response the cake was taken, because I'm not from America either.
nextlevelwizard 2y ago
Do the spotify links not just open the song in some kind of web app if you dont have spotify installed? I always thought giving a straight link to the thing was better for all. If they had Spotify it would open there and without ads if they had the subscription and if they had neither it would still open the web app and let them listen to it with ads and stuff.
- Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  Yeah, the generated preview (depending on what application the link is shared in) can play a 30 second sample, but if you want to listen to the whole song you need to have an account, and if you don't have a subscription you'll likely get an ad first. It's why I often share a youtube link instead, it plays inline a lot of the time and when it plays inline it often doesn't have ads. But that may also be because I have an effective ad blocker (for now).
- fragmede 2y ago
  That was true in the past but it's no longer true. I don't know when it changed.
  - Semaphor 2y ago
    That’s absolutely still true. I just disabled Spotify app link handling, and then Spotify opens in Firefox on my phone. And on Desktop it works the same way. edit: misread parts of grandparent. Yeah, the 30s previews are gone, didn’t even realize anyone used those.
    - fragmede 2y ago
      When I open a Spotify link as a webpage, I can't play that song unless I have an account. At some point in the past you didn't have to.
      - jorvi 2y ago
        You always had to, in the past it gave a 30s preview. It still does that in Discord.
Semaphor 2y ago
I’m in a dedicated music discord, about 70% of links are Bandcamp, 20% Spotify, 10% Tidal. BC percentage could be higher, but good enough, most of the time it’s only for those weird bands that don’t sell on BC anyway ;) That said, I do miss Songwhip. It was a website where you could search for a release, and then generate all links for it, including streaming services and bandcamp.
- tschumacher 2y ago
  I miss Songwhip as well. We used to have a bot in our music sharing Discord channel that looks for links to any streaming platform and convert them to Songwhip links via the Songwhip API. The good thing about Tidal is that, like Songwhip, it provides you with a list of links to various streaming platforms when you're not logged in.
  - Semaphor 2y ago
    Wish it had been open sourced, it worked so well. Or even better, if Bandcamp offered an API, so sites likes SW wouldn’t need to (probably) scrape that information. > The good thing about Tidal Can’t confirm, it’s worse than spotify for me, as I get an unclosable modal that asks me to sign up or login.
    - tschumacher 2y ago
      > Can’t confirm Try this link https://tidal.com/browse/track/18835695/u https://tidal.com/browse/track/18835695/u, for me it shows a list of links to other services: https://imgur.com/a/MEsaIZw https://imgur.com/a/MEsaIZw
      - Semaphor 2y ago
        Yeah, this one does, I guess you have to create a special link? Or is it only for tracks?
  - cjaackie 2y ago
    It was such a beautiful ui and ux , elegant really. It’s a shame yet I wonder how could it have been profitable. There’s really not a whole lot to monetize unless I’m missing something.
adastra22 2y ago
Huh, ok. Thanks for explaining. I just don’t listen to music, full stop. Never used Spotify in my life, or any other streaming music service. Was really confused about all of this.
antonvs 2y ago
> for those few users not using Spotify That's quite the extrapolation from your anecdotal experience. Technically, it would be more accurate to say, "for those few users using Spotify." What you've noticed is that Spotify has the biggest market share, but that doesn't mean that the number of users not using it are "few". According to https://explodingtopics.com/blog/music-streaming-stats https://explodingtopics.com/blog/music-streaming-stats, Spotify has a 30% market share. That implies that up to 70% of streaming music users aren't regular Spotify users.

sweca 2y ago

the repository description sums it up already: Effortlessly convert Spotify links to your preferred streaming service

emsixteen 2y ago
Honestly doesn't sum it up very well, given that it doesn't even mention that it's an extension.

atoav 2y ago

Yeah, but as I musician they pay you next to nothing unless you're already on top anyways. I know touring musicians who can comfortably live from their physical record/merch sales who say they can basically ignore their spotify revenue since they earn more with their merch sales on one concert than they earn during a whole year of running on spotify. So if you care about your musicians consider seeking out other ways to get your records, e.g. bandcamp

richrichardsson 2y ago
> as I musician they pay you next to nothing unless you're already on top anyways More like "as a musician they pay you literally nothing for a song unless it receives 1000 streams/12 months". This is total bullshit for small musicians.

grishka 2y ago

The readme also doesn't specify how to set up the development environment. I'd like to make a PR adding support for the two Russian streaming services most people here use, VKontakte and Yandex Music, and the code looks simple enough, but I have no idea how do I actually run it. It probably involves some npm commands?

lewispollard 2y ago
Looks like a pretty standard npm-based application, so just clone the repo, run `npm install` and then `npm run dev` (see `package.json` scripts section for available commands to use with `npm run`)

WhyNotHugo 2y ago

The project description on the right hand sidebar says a lot more: > Effortlessly convert Spotify links to your preferred streaming service

gertlex 2y ago
That's one sentence; it's a good sentence, but it's not a lot. Nothing about running it. And I already noted (in a very offhand way): > the About section/link being there... it's offscreen by the start of the README, so I missed it I think 10 years ago, that sidebar didn't exist on github, so I've got some old skimming habits I could modify... but I think the bar for READMEs should be higher. I was pleasantly surprised to see I wasn't alone in having too little info, though. This project is far far from being an outlier in this regards. 95% of ROS repos (robotics code packages) are worse :)

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]