📝 Finally, a worthy Spotify successor!
I've never been the kind of guy that's averse to change. If I find an interesting alternative to a piece of software I've used for a long time, I'm more than happy to try it. But even though I'm very willing to experiment, it doesn't mean I'm easy to please.
Spotify was a godsend for a music nerd like me who lived in a country where music shops were few and far between. While digital piracy was the primary way I consumed music for a long time, it always left me with this bad taste in my mouth; I wanted to pay for music, but I also didn't necessarily want to pay for entire albums at a time, especially if I didn't know in advance whether I'd actually enjoy what I was buying.
Once Spotify had properly grown its catalogue I tried the free version for a while and quickly discovered just how much value it was adding to my life. I've subscribed ever since.
But as we all know by now, Spotify has been well and thoroughly enshittified. Not only through the subtle and insidious addition of enormous amounts of soulless AI generated music slop, but also not giving artists their proper due, and in fact making the platform worse and worse for artists over the years. Even though I'd been content using the platform for a long time, that bad taste in my mouth started returning around three years ago. But whenever I looked for alternatives, they simply couldn't compete; Either the catalogue was too small, or the UI was terrible, or there were compatibility issues or other shortcomings that would keep me from jumping ship.
My criteria for a new streaming service of choice were fairly simple, but as it turns out, they were surprisingly hard to fulfill:
- The catalogue needs to be comparable in size so that I don't feel like I'm missing out on the music I'm interested in.
- The UI needs to look nice, be somewhat intuitive, and let me manage playlists easily.
- Lossless audio quality.
- Cross-platform.
- Sonos compatible.
- A family plan.
- Pay artists more, but costs roughly the same monthly price.
- .. and ideally: Let me buy music directly from the service.
And along came Qobuz...
I have to admit, I was trying to keep my expectations in check. Keep a cool head. Be pragmatic about it. The desire to leave Spotify had grown greater over the past few months and I felt like I would be willing to compromise a bit on my requirements. Turns out, I didn't need to.
Not only was the price comparable, but as I was exploring the platform, I found that Qobuz was not just an alternative, it was actually better than the platform I'd intended to leave for so long.
Now, some of you out there may object to the lack of lyrics, or video, or podcasts. Personally I never really cared that much about those features when using Spotify anyway, so that is all stuff I was very willing to sacrifice in order to sleep better at night knowing that I'm not supporting that crappy company any longer.
If any of you out there have also considered leaving Spotify behind, I highly encourage you to try Qobuz. They give you a free coupon to a service called Soundiiz which helps you move all your playlists and favorites over from Spotify, which really helped to ease the switch. In one single evening I had completely made the switch, and I had a lot of music saved on there.
Remember, voting with your wallet is the only real way to give companies of this magnitude any sort of real feedback. Oh, and leave a snarky comment when you cancel your subscription. They deserve as much.
Shout out to all the real artists and bands out there; We love you! ✊