Last year's price hike worked out very well for the company, so why not do it again? Spotify is preparing a revamp of its plans and prices, according to a...
As apparently, this move is made to target audiobook listeners and podcast listeners, can I recommend https://audiobookshelf.org
If the raise prices too much I'm going to finalise my plan to move to YouTube Music family plan. Additional bonus will be no more adds on YouTube.
Don't fall for this self hosting stuff. It's well meant and great for single tech enthusiasts, but with family, you won't have enough time to do the required upkeep and the whinning you will here from dependents when stuff goes wrong isn't worth it.
They're all pretty straight forward and Tidal has a better record of crediting and paying artists than Spotify. But ultimately, I would suggest self hosting.
I often buy albums on Bandcamp and supposedly artists get a good cut of that. They have an app too, so you can stream content from there (or self host the files you get when you buy)
The revenue from streaming services always pales in comparison to buying the music directly from an artist. The streaming model has been hijacked by record labels who take the majority share, such are the deals they force artists to sign.
A decent number of artists offer digital downloads of their music directly either for a flat fee or in a pay what you wish system.
It is nowhere near as convenient unfortunately. Benn Jordan mentions some options in several of their videos about their experience with Spotify, but i’m admittedly not certain I just linked the right one.
Works fine on Android as well (which is weird considering how bad Apple software can be on non-Apple devices). Just need to create an Apple ID and you're set.
Testing out the trial right now and it's pretty great so far.
UI is way better than Spotify as well (IMO), plus lossless for the same price as current Spotify Premium. (And it also has a max cache size limit option, so even playing a shit ton of lossless isn't going to eat up more space than what you select.)
Getting my fucking Spotify library and playlists I've built over the years on here is going to be a long nightmare, though.
The Music client for Mac is still an excellent music manager and player and beats Spotify by a mile despite how visibly much they've let it bitrot* since it was iTunes. It's a shame neither the mobile app nor the web client has anywhere near the capabilities.
* for example, what the fuck is that stupid unresizable header that takes up half the window with mostly empty space and doesn't scroll off the screen anymore if you set a playlist view to "as Songs"