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HootinNHollerin , (edited ) to technology in Spotify is raising the cost of Premium subscriptions, again

If switching services, this web service that moves your music between streaming services worked well for me. Paid $5 for one month then canceled soundiiz.com

wreckedcarzz ,
@wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world avatar

Same, YTM to AM. Also linked my last.fm if I remember correctly. 1 month for like $5 and canceled after the move.

Twitchy1 ,

Worked great when I moved from Google to Spotify due to YTM. A few songs didn’t transfer correctly, a few saved as covers of the original but as they shuffled I’d just manually search them and correct it.

viking , to technology in Spotify is raising the cost of Premium subscriptions, again
@viking@infosec.pub avatar

That’s gotta be a running gag now. Fuck em with a cactus.

teft , to technology in Spotify is raising the cost of Premium subscriptions, again
@teft@lemmy.world avatar

Faster than inflation

Darkassassin07 , to technology in Spotify is raising the cost of Premium subscriptions, again
@Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca avatar

It’s funny: I haven’t paid for any streaming/cable/media service in 10+ years; instead choosing to sail the seas, hord media, and host my own streaming service using tools like Emby/Plex/Jellyfin.

Spotify was the one and only service I had been considering, mainly because managing music files is still a PITA; but I keep running into articles like this one and renewing my will to fly the Jolly Rodger.

JoMiran , to technology in Spotify is raising the cost of Premium subscriptions, again
@JoMiran@lemmy.ml avatar
foggy ,

I’m all for pirating, but tbh music streaming apps are a service that is still in the “worth it” range. Not where Spotify is going, but, maintaining a library of high quality music with all the assets, and serving it to all your devices over the Internet is not a small feat to do securely.

I’ll probably switch to tidal for now while I start building up my library to include stuff beyond what I like…

PixelAlchemist ,

You should check out Plexamp while you bridge the gap. It has tidal support built in, and you can self-host your own collection as you build it up. Then when you’re done with tidal, you don’t have to learn or download a new app.

JustEnoughDucks ,
@JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl avatar

There is no point to self hosting music streaming in my opinion.

Just have syncthing sync your music folder on your SD card to your server. Everything local and available when you want it.

Plex is slowly being enshittified too it seems, just slower.

GregorTacTac ,
@GregorTacTac@lemm.ee avatar

Use Jellyfin as an alternative, it’s awesome!

JustEnoughDucks ,
@JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl avatar

I do, but the music streaming on jellyfin is nowhere near as nice as plexamp.

Just syncing all of your files locally is far superior to either unless your library is like >250GB.

Streaming is a different use case than playing your own music which is essentially what plexamp and jellyamp are doing with extra steps. There are much better local music players than either option.

Sunny ,

Plex is also on the route of enshittitfication. Jellyfin is the better recommendation imo. A variety of apps that can connect to it too, for either streaming or music.

For music libraries:

PixelAlchemist ,

I run both side-by-side, but for me Plex is still the clear winner right now for features and polish.

Norgur ,
@Norgur@fedia.io avatar

Plexamp, Lidarr, Lidarr extended, Tailscale. Done.

li10 ,

Done. Until it can’t find a decent quality option for an album you’re searching for.

A guy I know decided to move away from Spotify and pirate music. The amount of effort he went through means it’s something I’ll probably never try.

ShepherdPie ,

This is the biggest problem for me. I have thousands of movies and 10s of thousands of TV episodes, but my audio library is still all the same stuff I downloaded from Napster, Limewire, Kazaa 20+ years ago. It’s too hard to find a good selection these days outside of a few private trackers. I’m in several private trackers but I’m not going to sit in a queue for 2 days waiting for an interview time and jump through hoops to join something like RED or PTP tier tracker.

Not to mention I mostly listen to podcasts these days and when I do listen to music, I try to find new stuff that I’ve never heard of rather than searching for a known artist. This would be way too convoluted to do on my own with some self-hosted solution.

P1nkman ,

USENET. Thank me later

Adriox ,

Got one or two you might recommend?

PixelAlchemist ,

I’ve been using deemix, and for the most part it’s been pretty seamless. Stuff direct downloads instantly, but it’s all in 128kbps now unfortunately. Then I have lidarr monitor everything for a lossless version.

DjMeas ,

Are you saying Deemix only downloads at 128kbps? If so, I’ve been using it as well and download in FLAC. Also, I pay for the family plan which is $15.99/month.

Edit: Ah, I’m guessing you’re not on a paid Deezer plan.

PixelAlchemist ,

Yeah I’m on the free plan which used to include FLAC and 320kpbs, but they stopped doing that for free plans about a year ago I think.

wreckedcarzz ,
@wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world avatar

Just some perspective: I’ve been self-hosting stuff for 7y now, started with plex on a nas. I have tried a couple times to get the *arr stack working, one at a time and fuck me it’s complex and the risk of fucking up the config and data crossing the clearnet without a VPN, noooope fuck right off with that. That risk/reward just is too skewed for me.

Norgur ,
@Norgur@fedia.io avatar

it's not that complex, really. Yet, the variant I described doesn't do anything torrenty. It scrapes the songs from tidal.

Moderator ,

But how do you do music discovery?

Norgur ,
@Norgur@fedia.io avatar

Since all music services I've tried so far are laughably shit at that anyway, Last.fm is your friend. Besides, Plexamp tries to get you into a Tidal subscription and suggests things from there, so you'll get stuff here nad there.

Neato ,
@Neato@ttrpg.network avatar

As someone else said: it doesn’t replace streaming even a little. Pirating is replacing buying music directly. Streaming facilitates finding new music and trying it out. Being able to listen to anything at any time. You simply can’t do that with downloads; no one can download everything. Piracy in this case really just works for people still listening to their highschool favs and not people looking for new stuff all the time.

SadSadSatellite ,

It replaces paying for Spotify because its possible to download Spotify premium. Best of both worlds. Use Spotify or YouTube to find stuff, send it to a seedbox, load it later at home.

Biggest downside is most phones don’t have SD card slots anymore.

Sent from my (slightly salty) hacked pixel 7

cyberpunk007 OP ,

Yes and no. It’s more cumbersome for sure but I used to find music on YouTube and all that back in the day then download it.

small44 ,

I never had trouble finding new music without those recommandation algorithms.

veeesix ,
@veeesix@lemmy.ca avatar

I used to download exclusively when I was younger, but as I get older I’m trying out new genres from different cultures than my own and I’d miss out on it all without a streaming service.

In my opinion it’s worth it.

JackGreenEarth ,

InnerTune. Its on F-Droid

Mr_Wobble ,
@Mr_Wobble@lemmy.world avatar

Just installed this. I love you!

JoMiran ,
@JoMiran@lemmy.ml avatar

Dear lord no. You can still use Spotify, YTM, and a host of other services to discover new music. The argument was valid back in the days of the excellent Google Play Music, but the algorithm has gone to shit since. There are also tons of sources of user curated playlists you can use to fund new music.

I am 51 and if I let algorithms pick my music I would never discover most of what I find and constantly be fed thirty year old music. Just this past month I discovered mehro, King Woman, Sugar High and Parra for Cuva.

SexualPolytope ,

Or put some effort into finding new music? The algorithms have never suggested me anything good anyway.

RoosterBoy ,

This dude hasn’t heard of pirate streaming services.

Neato ,
@Neato@ttrpg.network avatar

Do they have the libraries of Spotify or Apple music?

Blisterexe ,

yeah actually

RoosterBoy ,

Yes, in fact there are modded versions of the Spotify app (idk about apple) to access their library for free.

Neato ,
@Neato@ttrpg.network avatar

Do they work like ReVanced Youtube and just remove ads/restrictions while keeping account properties? Or do they work like NewPipe and block all the algorithm stuff, use their own accounts/playlists?

RoosterBoy ,

Some do the first, some do the other

pineapplelover ,

I use a cracked Spotify client but if I do legitimately pay, it will be for Tidal. I want that sweet sweet lossless audio people have been talking about.

QuantumEyetanglement ,

I’m just here to appreciate the Buccee’s icon, carry on!

3aqn5k6ryk , to technology in Spotify is raising the cost of Premium subscriptions, again

Then the rest follow. If Apple music hike their price again, time to dust off my eye patch. Ive already cancelled all my streaming and went with plex, radarr, sonarr.

Norgur ,
@Norgur@fedia.io avatar

Life hack: get Plexamp and Lidarr with Lidarr extended scripts. Then sign up for a free month of tidal with a throwaway account. Add said account to Lidarr extended. Add all the artists you want to Lidarr and let Lidarr Extended download all the stuff from Tidal for you. Once it has run out, register with another throwaway adress.

cyberpunk007 OP ,

Basically doing this already but my only issue is discovery. That’s why I pay for Spotify. I used to have a script set up before the API closed that would run automatically monthly to snag all my liked songs.

Norgur ,
@Norgur@fedia.io avatar

There are cool projects for that on lidarr, or you use things like last.fm. Lidarr extended does have a feature to grab similar artists to the ones you have, leads to much bloat in a very short amount of time, of course.

3aqn5k6ryk ,

Thanks mate. Will definitely look at lidar. Maybe its time, some music like doom eternal arent available in apple music and this might push me.

ShepherdPie ,

Does this work with any other services like spotify? I know Tidal is lossless but I already have Spotify and Lidarr.

Norgur ,
@Norgur@fedia.io avatar

No, it works on Tidal and Deezer. Yet, since the throwaway account is free... :P Lidarr can import spotify playlists and fetch the tracks themselves from somewhere else though

cyberpunk007 OP ,

I do all these plus the streaming services 😂.

3aqn5k6ryk ,

Music streaming the only one i cant be bothered with since i have family plan with my gf plus discovering new music and new album from fav artist is too much to pass on.

Caesium , to technology in Spotify is raising the cost of Premium subscriptions, again

I gotta start direct downloading my music again soon. Spotify has just left me feeling so frustrated lately.

cyberpunk007 OP ,

I’ve emailed support thrice for intrusive full screen ads. “these are promotions”. Yeah, ads… “Sorry you don’t like our promotions, we will note it”

Uh huh.

talentedkiwi ,

I can’t updoot you enough. I hate that so much too.

Magzmak , to technology in Spotify is raising the cost of Premium subscriptions, again

I wish they allowed more audiobook time per month, so one could finish a book past 11hrs. I’d be fine with an extra buck or two for a combined audiobook/music streaming service.

Neato ,
@Neato@ttrpg.network avatar

Just your local library for Libby or other electronic access. You probably have access to borrow audiobooks online for free. (assuming the US)

militant_spider ,

Unfortunately, Spotify has it set where there doesn’t appear to be a limitation on how many people can listen at once, whereas Libby still only has so many copies to share.

CorrodedCranium , to technology in Spotify is raising the cost of Premium subscriptions, again
@CorrodedCranium@leminal.space avatar

How does this compare to other music streaming services these days?

Voyajer ,
@Voyajer@lemmy.world avatar

Tidal is $11/mo for an individual and $17 for a 6 person family plan. I recently switched because they supposedly give a better cut to artists and serve flac files.

Norgur ,
@Norgur@fedia.io avatar

Yeah. Never thought I'd see the day when Tidal was cheaper than crappy Spotify.

dinckelman ,

If i wasn’t paying for a family play on Spotify, I would have resorted to music piracy at this point. The quality is still garbage, the service is getting worse, but the prices are only going up every half a year

variants ,

I tried sourcing my own music but man it’s a lot harder than movies and shows. Especially when you like to hear random recommended music how do you get enough

gravitas_deficiency ,

Yeah - credit where it’s due, Spotify did a really good job with their music recommendation engine. It’s just that recently, they’ve started to get into the sad part of the enshittification cycle. I kinda saw the writing on the wall when they started forcing Joe Rogan podcast promos fucking everywhere, without having a config anywhere to disable podcast suggestions (which I don’t use through Spotify)

CosmoNova ,

I’m surprised you’re only getting these now. My recommendations have been mostly garbage for the better part of a decade so all this praise for finding new music confuses me a little. Spotify has many feats, but the algorithm never was one for me, quite the opposite. I find it more annoying than helpful, actually.

gravitas_deficiency ,

Oh I started getting them years ago. That’s when the first inkling of “this thing might be going downhill now” entered my mind.

Appoxo ,
@Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

My beginning (about 6 years ago) was fine. Still miss the radio feature though.
They kinda brought it back but in a reverse form (former: 4 new 1 old, now: 5 old 1 new).
Playlist shuffle is atrocious but I am not picking them better any better.

dinckelman ,

Feel you there. A lot of what i listen to are brand new bands, and finding sources for those is rough

li10 ,

£2 a month for a HiFi subscription if you use a Nigerian VPN.

cyberpunk007 OP ,

So if you use a VPN to sign up, then disconnect the VPN, does it block you? Or do you always need to be on VPN?

li10 ,

You don’t need to be connected on the VPN to use it, I find it identical to my previous UK subscription.

Only difference is that your initial recommendations are for Nigerian music 😆 Those disappear quite quickly after you start listening to music you like tho.

wreckedcarzz ,
@wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world avatar

Do you need to stay connected to that, or just for payment setup? I’ve already got an account…

tatterdemalion ,
@tatterdemalion@programming.dev avatar

Tidal is great but IIRC it either doesn’t support Amazon Echo or the integration is poorly implemented.

sadbehr ,
@sadbehr@lemmy.nz avatar

Oh no.

cyberpunk007 OP ,

I feel they’re all fairly similar. I won’t do apple music because I don’t do iOS, and I moved from Google play music when forced to the inferior YouTube music. I wonder if tidal or any other service has comparable pricing.

Dasnap ,
@Dasnap@lemmy.world avatar

I use YT Music because I get it cheap (VPN shenanigans), you can upload your own music (hello Nintendo soundtracks), and I mod the Android app to stop it being a mess (ReVanced Extended is the GOAT).

cyberpunk007 OP ,

Do you always have to have the VPN connected to get the cheaper rate?

Dasnap ,
@Dasnap@lemmy.world avatar

Nah just when I bought it. I did this a while ago so I’m not sure if it still works.

I’m gonna cling onto the quid a month rate for dear life.

impure9435 ,

I've been using Apple Music on Android for years, I definitely recommend it. The app is totally fine, I think it's still better than Spotify's crappy app. On desktop you can use the Cider app, which is much better than iTunes. It's even available on Linux.

wreckedcarzz ,
@wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world avatar

I switched to AM a couple years ago due to the (better) privacy policy vs YTM. The app is ‘fine’ but it’s painfully obvious that they didn’t want to bother with the android UI guidelines. But it’s a small annoyance, and the price is… palatable, I guess? I think I’d jump ship at $14, but at $12, fine. I don’t use it that much.

Actually, it’d be nice if they would charge based on usage, not flat-rate. I doubt I’m using $3 of that $12 cost.

Appoxo ,
@Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Hell no…Please not based on usage :o
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/pictrs/image/724d9e4e-914f-4a97-8c93-ce28503ca524.png

But I’d be fine with the option to do either

rustydomino ,
@rustydomino@lemmy.world avatar

There is an official Apple Music desktop app for windows now, no need to use Cider.

cas919 ,

I use Apple Music, primarily because I need to pay for the higher tiers iCloud storage for my wife’s photo addiction and it’s basically “free” for the family plan.

If I didn’t already have the higher tier iCloud, I would probably prefer tidal for higher quality, or Spotify for the more diverse library.

impure9435 ,

Apple Music only raised the price by $1 since the launch in 2015 (9 years ago). But they added cool features like lossless audio quality and Dolby Atmos. They also had lyrics like 6 years before Spotify added them. I think you can even get it for $6 dollars if you're a student.

Magister ,
@Magister@lemmy.world avatar

Some lyrics are now disappearing from Spotify :-(

impure9435 ,

lmao

ji17br ,

They also payout about 2.5X what Spotify does to artists.

GenEcon ,

How does this work? Spotify has a deal with the music publishers, where they give 70 % of all subscription income to the music companies. The music companies (Sony, Warner, etc) then split the money based on the share of streams.

How can Apple pay out 2.5x70 %, so 175 %? Are thes losing with every subscription?

PixelAlchemist ,

Think of it not in terms of revenue percentages, but by payouts per song stream:

Service Payout/song Plays to make $1
Tidal Music $0.01284 78
Apple Music $0.008 125
Amazon Music $0.00402 249
Spotify $0.00318 314
YouTube Music $0.002 500
Pandora $0.00133 752
Deezer $0.0011 909

So song for song, Apple is paying 2.5x what Spotify is (.008/.00318), and Tidal is paying out a whopping 4x what Spotify pays.

Sauce: producerhive.com/…/streaming-royalties-breakdown/

GenEcon ,

That whole article is BS, they even say it themselves:

Rates are rarely paid at a flat rate per stream

There is no payout per stream. Instead a fixed percentage of the subscription price is shared among each streamed song. So why does Tidal pay more then? Either their subscriber numbers are still incorrect (they have a history of publishing way higher numbers than in reality), their subscriber listen to less music (which is the main reason Apple Music pays more per stream on paper, since its often bundled) or their audience focuses more on a single artist (or a genre).

PixelAlchemist ,

Sure. Obviously it’s more complex than that, but it helps illustrate where the math came from in the parent comment. I don’t know why Tidal pays more, but I’m hypothesizing its because most of their “co-owners” of Tidal are themselves, artists/musicians, which IMO is significantly better than the out of touch folks running Spotify.

KoalaUnknown ,

The $6 student plan also includes Apple TV+

kn0wmad1c ,
@kn0wmad1c@programming.dev avatar

I use YouTube Music and it’s pretty good, but the best feature is no more youtube ads.

DjMeas ,

I use Deezer’s family plan that includes FLAC/HiFi for $15.99/month.

xia , to technology in OpenAI says it stopped multiple covert influence operations that abused its AI models

When you stare into the AI, the AI stares back at you.

afraid_of_zombies , to technology in Meta caught an Israeli marketing firm running hundreds of fake Facebook accounts

I just assumed that almost all activity on faceboot are bots.

BreadstickNinja ,

Bots and grandparents getting fleeced by bots.

afraid_of_zombies ,

But how can we say no to helping the Prince of Nigeria!?

NoSpiritAnimal , to technology in Meta caught an Israeli marketing firm running hundreds of fake Facebook accounts
@NoSpiritAnimal@lemmy.world avatar

Any post about Israel on Threads still has a comment section filled with non-posting accounts that only comment water-muddying dreck about Hamas.

It’s rampant. Hasbara is busy.

realharo , to technology in OpenAI says it stopped multiple covert influence operations that abused its AI models

I guess the ones they stopped just weren’t covert enough.

vk6flab , (edited ) to technology in OpenAI says it stopped multiple covert influence operations that abused its AI models
@vk6flab@lemmy.radio avatar

Are the people who work at OpenAI smoking crack?

“Over the last year and a half there have been a lot of questions around what might happen if influence operations use generative AI,” Ben Nimmo, principal investigator on OpenAI’s Intelligence and Investigations team, told members of the media in a press briefing

Here’s a clue, look around you.

ChatGPT isn’t the only fish in the sea and state actors using a public service like it deserve to be caught. Running your own system privately, without scrutiny, without censorship, without constraints is so trivial that teenagers are doing this on their laptops, so much so that you can docker pull your way into any number of LLM images.

Seriously, this is so many levels of absurd that it’s beyond comprehension…

MigratingtoLemmy ,

I’m still baffled at how good Ollama is on working on paltry hardware like ARM and small VMs. Give it GPUs and it’s amazing.

The next step should be to encrypt information at Transit and rest to as to purchase GPU power from the cloud but maintaining client-side encryption throughout. That’ll bring even more power to the masses: imagine giving Ollama a Cloud endpoint to remote GPUs which it can compute on without the consumer purchasing any hardware.

AtHeartEngineer ,
@AtHeartEngineer@lemmy.world avatar

ARM is not paltry, it’s in small/portable devices because it’s efficient, not weak.

foggy ,

Tell that to groq.

webghost0101 , (edited )

Having tried many different models on my machine and being a long-time GPT-4 user, I can say the self-hosted models are far more impressive in sheer power for their size. However, the good ones still require a GPU that most people nor teenagers can’t afford.

Nonetheless, GPT-4 remains the most powerful and useful model, and it’s not even a competition. Even Google’s Gemini doesn’t compare, in my experience.

The potential for misuse increases alongside usefulness and power. I wouldn’t use Ollama or GPT-3.5 for my professional work because they’re just not reliable enough. However, GPT-4, despite also having its useless moments, is almost essential.

The same holds true for scammers and malicious actors. GPT-4’s voice will technically allow live, fluent conversations through a phone using a dynamic voice. That’s the holy grail for scamcallers. OpenAI is right to want to eliminate as much abuse of their system as possible before releasing such a thing.

There is an argument to be made for not releasing such dangerous tools, but the counter is that someone malicious will inevitably release it someday. It’s better to be prepared and understand these systems before that happens. At least i think thats what OpenAi believes, i am not sure what to think. How could i known they Arent malicious?

foggy ,

Saying you wouldn’t use ‘ollama or gpt3.5’ is such a… I want to say uneducated statement? These are not two like terms

You’re aware that ollama isn’t an LLM? You’re aware there are LLMs available via ollama that exceed gpt4s capabilities? I mean, you’re right that you need an array of expensive gpus to run them effectively, but… Just comparing ollama to gpt-3.5 is like comparing an NCAA basketball star to the Harlem globe trotters. It’s ridiculous at its face. A player compared to a team, for starters.

webghost0101 , (edited )

Correct, i kept it simple on purpose and could probably have worded it better.

It was a meant as a broader statement including “both publicly available free to download models like those based on the ollama architectures as well as free to acces proprietary llm’s like gpt3.5”

I personally tried variations of the vicuna, wizardLM and a few other models (mostly 30B, bigger was to slow) which are all based on ollama’s architecture but i consider those individual names to be less known.

Neither of these impressed me all that much. But of course this is a really fast changing industry. Looking at the hf leaderboard i don’t see any of the models i tried. Last time i checked was January.

I may also have an experience bias as i have become much more effective using gpt4 as a tool compared to when i just started to use it. This influences what I expect and how i write prompts for other models.

I’d be happy to try some new models that have since archived new levels. I am huge supporter for self-hosting digital tools and frankly i cant wait to stop funding ClosedAi

foggy ,

Llama3-70b is probably the most general purpose capable open source

There are a bunch of contenders for specific purposes, like coding and stuff, though. I wanna say Mistral has a brand new enormous one that you’d need like 4 4090s to run smoothly.

muntedcrocodile ,

Ur missing the point the goal is yo ban anyone except the big companies.

kitnaht , to technology in Meta caught an Israeli marketing firm running hundreds of fake Facebook accounts

I mean, they’ve been all over Reddit running accounts for decades at this point, no? At this point I feel like 75% of my interactions on mainstream sites are going to be from foreign agents and/or bots.

WanderingVentra ,

They’ve got to be at least 75% of /r/worldnews.

filister ,

They simply ban you there for a mere criticism of Israel, which has nothing to do with their T&C. By now this subreddit turned into an echo chamber of likely minded bots and trolls.

FenrirIII ,
@FenrirIII@lemmy.world avatar

They will site ban you for reporting the shill accounts too, even when they’re flagrantly violating the TOS.

afraid_of_zombies ,

You can trust me. I am human.

On a completely unrelated matter have you thought about therapy but don’t have the time to see a therapist in person? Try Better Help.

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