It's really interesting when you think about that.

In the video world, we've had an arms race all throughout the last 25 years for the lowest possible file size at the best possible quality, with new codecs and containers constantly coming in and out of favour. Hardware playback has always been spotty at best, with little guarantee you'll get a file to play on any device in particular.

Meanwhile I could rip a CD and put it on even my first-generation MP3 player from the year 1999, and it would work. A blessing we rather take for granted.

I guess there just hasn't been sufficient pressure to toss MP3 out completely. From an evolutionary perspective, just like the horseshoe crab, it is "good enough" and so it endures.

It's still giving them SOMETHING, isn't it?

Of course I'd prefer to buy directly from the artist (hence: Bandcamp), but that's not the world we live in. Flat out piracy is just the worst of all the available options.

woah woah woah, chill bro goddamn

Then stop saying stupid shit like "they just cannot live without an algorithm" when talking about people who use streaming services.

it really isn't though. I don't really know where you live or how your local economy is organized but where I'm at people in my tax bracket are extracted for every ounce of raw money we can generate, both now but even speculatively in the future. it really doesn't make sense to consider theft as a taboo against corporations since we are literally a resource that's being exploited in real time for far much more than whatever artists would lose if we all stole.

.sopuli is a Finnish board right? my understanding is that you guys have way stronger social ethics and consumer protection, so yeah. in your world I probably would sign up for that Napster subscription again. or even better, a service actually from Finland. Bandcamp is good too.

here, though in the present we have far worse things to worry about than theft. being tricked into defending the feelings of billionaires is a big one. letting corporations curate our education and media is another. but I hope you continue to have the life where you can engage with your economy in such a good intentioned way. I miss back when I felt I could do that too.

Sex on drugs is awesome…

I mean, the Spotify CEO invests in AI weaponry being used to murder kids in Gaza so the morally correct thing to do would be to leave Spotify over that.

You're right and I'd go a bit further: It's none of their business what your age even is, they need to know only one bit for their legal duties, over or under age of majority.

Basically what is really needed is a certificate of majority digitally signed by the government bound to some identifier, email address or full name. All this uploading faces or ID card scans is ridiculous.

It's really interesting when you think about that.

In the video world, we've had an arms race all throughout the last 25 years for the lowest possible file size at the best possible quality, with new codecs and containers constantly coming in and out of favour. Hardware playback has always been spotty at best, with little guarantee you'll get a file to play on any device in particular.

Meanwhile I could rip a CD and put it on even my first-generation MP3 player from the year 1999, and it would work. A blessing we rather take for granted.

I guess there just hasn't been sufficient pressure to toss MP3 out completely. From an evolutionary perspective, just like the horseshoe crab, it is "good enough" and so it endures.

people in my tax bracket are extracted for every ounce of raw money we can generate, both now but even speculatively in the future. it really doesn’t make sense to consider theft as a taboo against corporations

This is such an "I'm 12 and a rebel" position to take...

Sure, corporate greed is a cancer, there's zero doubt about that.

But these corporation also create jobs, make it possible for many people to survive. In terms of media streaming corpos SO MANY people/bands were allowed to have a career thanks to people just stumbling upon them.

Should they be getting paid more? Absolutely. Should the corpos handling the hardware, infrastructure, AND software be also paid? If you don't believe that, you're just naive or ignorant. Or both.

sopuli is a Finnish board right? my understanding is that you guys have way stronger social ethics and consumer protection, so yeah. in your world I probably would sign up for that Napster subscription again. or even better, a service actually from Finland. Bandcamp is good too

Or the French Qobuz.

here, though in the present we have far worse things to worry about than theft. being tricked into defending the feelings of billionaires is a big one. letting corporations curate our education and media is another

Be the change you want to see. Instead of going stomping feet and stealing candy, go to the store that you feel you can morally support. Hard to do IRL, but online - sky is the limit. Use European services, those that pay artists (Qobuz pays around 5 times more than Spotify to rights holders), buy directly from artists on Bandcamp, etc., etc.

Piracy is literally the worst solution here because you're taking without giving. Any "fight the corpo!" banner here is just extreme naivete because the artist will starve MUCH quicker than the corp.

Spotify was shit anyway use yt music

yeeesh. I realize now that getting artists paid is obviously way less important to you than having somebody to verbally spar with. this is reductive and overall pretty naive to the actual experience of being in the workforce or trying to consume ethically.

instead of shouldering the responsibility of being your debate partner, I'm going to bow out and bid you a good life perhaps somebody else here would like to take turns quote tweeting and making character assessments with you.

"I want to have my publicly stated opinion, but it's not allowed to be challenged or questioned in any way"

Do you have any other good alternative to recommend? Nice quality, not too much tracking, low/fair price, nice recommendation algorithm, has lots of musics...

Do you have any other good alternative to recommend? Nice quality, not too much tracking, low/fair price, nice recommendation algorithm, has lots of musics...

Do you have any other good alternative to recommend? Nice quality, not too much tracking, low/fair price, nice recommendation algorithm, has lots of musics...

yt-dlp --extract-audio --audio-quality 3 --audio-format ogg

I think they just cannot live without an algorithm to recommend new music to them

Oh, piss off. I just want to financially support artists for making something beautiful I enjoy. Streaming is the easiest because of space constraints. I still buy the CDs of my most favourite albums, but I cannot stress enough how great it is to NOT have to rip the MP3s every time, make sure the tags are good, etc.

It's convenient.

If you don't like Spotify's new ID check, kill your Spotify account and use an alternative - Tidal and Qobuz are both excellent.

You can probably get a pirate hat online for a few bucks. And there are plenty of discoverability systems not based on integration with a subscription service.

I am trying the following services the next few months:
Tidal, deezer, qobuz and pirating