I brought this up with my cousin, who hates AI as much as I do. He says that he can't switch, because he has nearly 10 years of music on the platform.
The CEO may not be wrong in this case.
this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2026
240 points (96.2% liked)
Technology
86982 readers
2992 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
It's not super hard to leave Spotify if you are willing to invest some effort.
Use Exportify (free service) to download his playlists from Spotify as csv files. Or use something like Soundizz (paid) to directly convert between platforms.
You can parse the csv files and use something like Soulseek to create an offline library. Compress to aac or opus so you can take thousands of songs with you on your phone, or use your own casting service on a raspberry pi.
I'm aware it's possible. I'm saying that even people who hate AI may not leave because they don't have the bandwidth to abandon the service.
You don't need bandwidth to switch streaming services and import your old playlists though. For example a streaming service like Tidal tags all AI music and does not monetize AI generated music.
And if you weant the music straight on your phone, something like Opus 128 kbps is already considered high quality (we have come a long way since mp3). Let's say your cousin has 20 000 songs. That's about 60 GB in that form, which fits on most mid grade/flagship phones.
If you get Qobuz they pay for a 3rd party service to import your playlists. Did a reasonable job (mostly)
I'm a qobuz user as well, but the music selection just isn't as good as Spotify. It isn't an issue for me, but it will be a barrier to entry for some.
I saw this on another thread but if you really want to help musicians directly, I'd recommend www.paymusicians.app.
I am not sponsored by them, and I have no ties to the company, but I (artist name Thassodar) signed up for them last week and just received like $.50 this morning.
May sound insignificant but, in the last 6 years I've been streaming, it's the fastest turnaround for any payout I've signed up for. And to get that fifty cents from Spotify I'd probably need several hundred plays. Consider them to support artists, and recommend artists you know sign up. I hope it's a better way to get money directly to the creator.
Maybe it's my frame of mind (I'm not "discovering" new music, I stopped paying for streaming when I realized 99% of what I was listening to was recorded in the last millennium) but I can't fathom how this would "turn free users to paid."
It's too much crap now, the prices are going up, but the services are increasingly crap.
Last year, I cancelled my subscription and switched to self-hosting with Navidrome. It does what it's supposed to do, it does it well, no bullshit algorithms, and there are enough integrations to even provide a basic "discover this new song," "create a playlist the way I want," etc.
Yes, self hosting Navidrome is the way and I could never look back. I love it. Especially the Feishin app for Navidrome on desktop.
Or course they do, people have been guzzling down Boy Band crap for 80 years…
Thank goodness I decided to get out of this trap.
I feel like this will hurt media companies in the long term. I can imagine that as this AI stuff escalates there will be plenty of services that will generate slop for you, so what will keep people paying for spotify?
i guess they dont care about that, that's a different quarter's problem.
Of course they will! I was looking for a cover version of a famous song which led me into a rabbit hole of AI artists with a plethora of cover songs (all with no identity of their own), some with YouTube channels featuring "concert videos" by the artist (all AI generated) and they has comments that did not like AI of people celebrating the music and artist.