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Spotify increases its US subscription prices for the third time in 3 years
- remus_rm 9mo agoawesome! Thanks for the 3 month free!
- amanaplanacanal 9mo agoCancelled mine a while ago. My partner likes watching YouTubers on the TV, and I can't abide ads. So I pay for YouTube, get rid of the ads, and get free music streaming as a benefit. Win win win!
- DoesntMatter22 9mo agoI have youtube premium to avoid youtube ads and now I use YouTube Music myself and it's great. Saves me money and I love it
- marginalia_nu 9mo agoI rage quit Spotify a few years ago because they kept breaking how the app worked with frustrating regularity. This was around when they changed the hue of the spotify icon to a slightly different one. YTM is arguably a worse product, but also a consistent one with zero UX churn, which I'll take any day of the week. Youtube Premium is also very nice if you spend any time ever watching youtube videos.
- alturp 9mo agoI recently switched to an iPod and have a Samba server that I can use to access my music library on the go if needed, via WireGuard. Honestly, I could not be more happier with it. I think there are very few advantages for technically inclined people to still pay for streaming services, and the fees are not one of them.
- analogpixel 9mo agoI've started doing the same thing; I'm back to paying for my music, and listening to it on the devices I choose.
- drBonkers 9mo agoWhat iPod do you use? Any docs you like on how to? I tried to get a shuffle working but couldn’t get it to connect or power on. How do you like to discover music now?
- alturp 9mo agoI am using Classic iPod using Rockbox, it is basically drag and drop without Apple's gatekeeping. I also changed battery and increase storage capacity using iFlash adapters. Although I am very happy with this setup, I recommend you check some cheap mp3 players that can be used with Rockbox. It was pain in the ass to open it, and second hand market is way too expensive. I am using Bandcamp and Youtube to discover music. I also would like to check Musicbrainz.
- pepperball 9mo agoI haven’t cancelled Spotify etc but I axed HBO max after what seemed to be the third email about another price increase in a short period. Funny thing is, if they just had offered me larger one-shot price increase, I’d have paid it no mind likely. Something about the drip-feed of price increases in such a short time pissed me off enough to cancel though.
- jqpabc123 9mo agoThanks for reminding me why I don't have a Spotify account.
- chistev 9mo agoWhat do you use?
- deejaaymac 9mo agoI personally use jellyfin and supply the media myself, though there are much better ways to do it. Alternative: https://nuclearplayer.com/ https://nuclearplayer.com/
- mahmoudhossam 9mo agoThere is also navidrome https://navidrome.org https://navidrome.org
- GlitchRider47 9mo agoI just started using Finamp for Android https://github.com/jmshrv/finamp https://github.com/jmshrv/finamp I recommend the beta edition as the UI is quite evolved from the previous version.
- doubled112 9mo agoThat testimonials section is pretty incredible, to the point I'm not sure if the whole thing is satire or not.
- chistev 9mo agoI want to support the artists, though.
- atoav 9mo agoThen buy the record at bandcamp. My band made 10 times more in a month at bandcamp than in 4 years of spotify.
- nine_zeros 9mo ago[dead]
- fred_is_fred 9mo agoI don't think it's nearly as good but I use Apple Music streaming since it's bundled and doesn't actively fund Joe Rogan's insanity.
- analogpixel 9mo agoLong ago I canceled my spotify because they were giving millions to Joe Rogan, but not the artist actually making music. You could spend a year making a solid album and make a fraction of what some dude that just spews gibberish makes in one episode.
- GlitchRider47 9mo agoSpotify is not just a music platform but a podcast platform too. I'll bet they make a good amount from Rogan's show. I don't see what the big deal is about giving money to the podcaster making podcasts instead of the artist making music.
- analogpixel 9mo agoThe comment was more of social commentary on the fact that a group of people could spend a year of their lives doing something like making an album of music, and make substantially less money than someone that just makes up facts for 1 hour.
- mouselett 9mo agoI have to be honest, I immediately decided to quit the service and subscribe to YouTube Premium as soon as I saw the news yesterday. I would've been fine if it was just the regular full-priced subscription offerings that were increasing in price, but to do it to the student plan as well? And for what, to cover the costs of Hulu? It's not like audiobooks are included with the student plan! Given that this latest price hike now puts Spotify's student plan within a dollar of YouTube Premium's student plan while being more expensive than almost every other music streamer's student plans, I decided to take the plunge and subscribe to YouTube Premium, because if Spotify's going to increase the price of their subscriptions and not offer a good reason to do it, then why even bother?
- andrewinardeer 9mo agoI'm with you in this yet the only disadvantage for me with YTP is lack of lossless.
- isaachinman 9mo agoAs far as I know, Spotify still doesn't have lossless
- sbinder 9mo agoThey've added it as an option recently.
- 999900000999 9mo agoThe issue is most people don't have a setup that will even care. Bluetooth lowers audio quality, and very few people have DACs or even phones right 3.5 jacks. I often imagine an alternate history where Apple kept the jack, maybe added a 4.4... audio quality would be so much higher now. Think about all the audio engineers who don't even consider higher quality setups. All the bandwidth on earth don't matter if the original master isn't perfect.
- ChrisArchitect 9mo agoSource: https://newsroom.spotify.com/2026-01-15/premium-pricing-update/ https://newsroom.spotify.com/2026-01-15/premium-pricing-upda...
- turnsout 9mo agoIn related news, I bought a CD player today
- b3ing 9mo agoPandora is still around, as well as a few other similar services
- BoredPositron 9mo agoI listened to it like 12 years through proxies and always hoped they would expand worldwide, they got more aggressive with their blocking so I ditched them. I really miss their radio stations.
- JoshGlazebrook 9mo ago$22/month for a family plan of 5 people to have unlimited streaming is more than worth it to me. They would have to triple the price for me to even think about it being an issue. And this is coming from someone who was on what.cd for years. I also prefer Spotify over apple music and youtube music from a ui/ux perspective as well.
- neuralRiot 9mo agoI noticed the price creeping the last time and just said to me “when it touches the $15 mark it’s gone, it seems to be approaching there so I’ll look for a different platform or just go back to mp3s.
- AbstractH24 9mo agoWe’re not there yet, but boggles me that we’re getting close to the big disruptive startups of the 2010s getting disrupted themselves. More in the on demand space, but here too I’m sure
- jmux 9mo agoI’ve been wanting to get rid of Spotify for months as the service has been getting worse and worse and this might just be the straw that breaks the camels back. Does anyone know of alternatives with 1) decent discovery for new music 2) preferably not self hosted 3) a functional Linux desktop app 4) allows downloading playlists for offline listening getting all of these in one place and having them work well is why I’ve been stuck with Spotify for so long :/
- dworks 9mo agoI am building tinytunes as a lightweight, in-browser music player for YouTube and local music, in large part because YouTube has a better library of music than Spotify, but a bad UI for a music player: https://dj.t-tunes.com/ https://dj.t-tunes.com/ A dedicated music player and music recommendations is coming later ; this is a combined DJ controller + music player that lets you import local tracks and youtube playlists
- tom_808 9mo agoI'm not Spotify's greatest advocate here but why do all the comments here suggest that if he price goes up then it just mean you get more for your money. It's called inflation. The cost of doing business for them has risen and therefore they are passing that back to consumer. Now that doesn't prevent them from not increasing wages of course and pocketing some of that extra revenue instead of course. It just shouldn't be surprising that things get more expensive as time goes on.