this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2024
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Fuck Subscriptions

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Naming and shaming all "recurring spending models" where a one-time fee (or none at all) would be appropriate and logical.

Expect use of strong language.

Follow the basic rules of lemmy.world and common sense, and try to have fun if possible.

No flamewars or attacking other users, unless they're spineless corporate shills.

Note that not all subscriptions are awful. Supporting your favorite ~~camgirl~~ creator or Lemmy server on Patreon is fine. An airbag with subscription is irl Idiocracy-level dystopian bullshit.

New community rule: Shilling for cunty corporations, their subscriptions and other anti-customer practices may result in a 1-day ban. It's so you can think about what it's like when someone can randomly decide what you can and can't use, based on some arbitrary rules. Oh what, you didn't read this fine print? You should read what you're agreeing to.

==========

Some other groovy communities for those who wish to own their products, their data and their life:

Right to Repair/Ownership

Hedges Development

Privacy

Privacy Guides

DeGoogle Yourself

F-Droid

Stallman Was Right

Some other useful links:

FreeMediaHeckYeah

Louis Rossman's YouTube channel

Look at content hosted at Big Tech without most of the nonsense:

Piped

Invidious

Nitter

Teddit

 

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[–] DaPorkchop_@lemmy.ml 9 points 10 months ago (6 children)

While I agree that this is stupid, why would a deaf person be using Spotify in the first place?

[–] MagnyusG@lemmy.world 20 points 10 months ago (9 children)

Deafness isn't binary, they could be capable of hearing the music but not making out the lyrics.

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

And even people who cannot hear anything at all still feel the bass and stuff.

[–] Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Relevant funny story from Deaf actor Daniel Durant: https://youtube.com/shorts/eYQKtwkoZOI

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[–] z500@startrek.website 5 points 10 months ago

Wait, are you supposed to be able to make out the lyrics?

[–] Phegan@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

As someone who is not deaf, this was a really helpful comment to help me understand, thank you.

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago

To everyone else reading down here, lot of people also don't really get this same idea with visual impairment and other handicaps.

There are a lot of people who are legally blind, but that just means they can't make out things at certain distances, and these are why we need things like high-visibility curbs and street markers and large-type text options and other accessibility features that able-bodied people in a wide field of industries often forget about and just assume either people are blind and won't be using their products, or will have perfect vision. When really there are far more people who are considered deaf or blind who can still enjoy many of the same things as someone with fully faculties and just need a little extra help.

I am only typing this out because we seem to entering a strange time in the developed world where more and more people are withdrawing from the social contract and not extending compassion towards others, particularly those with special needs.

When I was little I thought the future would be a bright and remarkable place where people took care of each other, because those were the messages you see on PBS shows like Mr Rogers and Sesame Street. Turns out, a LOT of people didn't watch those shows.

[–] dogsnest@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

Excuse me while I kiss this guy!

[–] DaPorkchop_@lemmy.ml 2 points 10 months ago

Makes sense!

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[–] LucasWaffyWaf@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

So I'm not deaf, not in the slightest, but I struggle to understand lyrics in music. I love music, I live and breathe it and I'm gonna dedicate my life to it, but I've always struggled with understanding lyrics in music. To me, the vocalist is just another instrument in the mix. Having lyrics to read helps me appreciate my favorite tunes more!

[–] june@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

You might have a smidge of ~~Speech~~ Auditory* Processing Disorder. I do and that's what it's like for me. Common comorbidity with ADHD and ASD, and possibly other neurotypes.

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[–] ImADifferentBird@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I killed my Spotify account when they started shoveling millions of dollars at Joe Rogan, and everything they've done since then only confirms I made the right call.

[–] Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Me too. Migrating to Tidal was extremely easy. They even imported my Spotify playlists and follows. And they are cheaper. Fuck Spotify.

[–] spikespaz@programming.dev 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Actually it wasn't easy, they rely on a third party service that charges the customer instead of Tidal footing that bill for you. I thought that was a bit tacky.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I may have to try that again: at the time I got too many complaints from my kids. Now Spotify hugely increased prices, probably to pay for its attempt to collect Podcasts that I’m not interested in.

Unfortunately I agreed with my kids: other music services just don’t works as well

[–] Getting6409@lemm.ee 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Tidal has been pretty good for me over the past 5 years. I don't know what your criteria are, but for me it's something like 1) is the catalog big enough to offer 90% of what I'm looking for and 2) no advertising if I'm paying for the service. It ticks those boxes. I imagine it's only a matter of time until they introduce the bullshit tier where you're paying and being advertised to, but for now you get what you pay for.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago
  1. My teens like it

  2. I can predictably ask for either an artist or “like an artist” and get hours of what I asked for. (Apple just segued into random stuff so I always had to get it back on track. Someone I want listen to specifically someone do if I ask for that I expect to get that)

[–] AlexWIWA@lemmy.ml 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

This one is actually out of their hands. Lyrics aren't free sadly and they have to pay for API calls. It's fucking stupid but the labels are the ones at fault here.

Fuck Spotify nonetheless.

[–] npz@lemm.ee 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (10 children)

Unless there's some agreement / licensing thing prohibiting it, and considering that lyrics don't change, they should be able to do some caching for a total of 1 API call per song

[–] AlexWIWA@lemmy.ml 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

You and I can do that but they're not just caching they're redistributing which requires royalties

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[–] absquatulate@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago (41 children)

If it were a paid account yeah, it'd be extremely shitty. But seeing as it's a free account, it's their prerogative to try and get people to pay for the service. Besides, I don't get this entitlement that spotify has to provide music for free. They're a (admittedly greedy) middle-man that wants to get paid. If one wants free music and everything, well, time to self-host.

[–] MajorHavoc@programming.dev 1 points 10 months ago (24 children)

it's their prerogative to try and get people to pay for the service.

Except that this attempt could easily be shown to largely land on folks with accessibility needs. That's a big no-no under many laws.

An interesting comparison is pay-to-ride elevators. For most folks an elevator is a nice convenience they would not mind occasionally paying for.

But for some folks, the elevator is completely essential. This dynamic resulted in making pay-to-ride elevators illegal in most places, today.

[–] Ptsf@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (6 children)

Due to the uniquely fucked up way music licensing works, it's likely they license the lyrics through a separate company than the music and probably don't even directly license it themselves (Tidal for example uses Musicmatch's lyric library and api). There's a cost associated with this that is likely outside their control. It's shitty, but it is plalusibly reasonable they implemented this as a cost savings measure.

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[–] Infernal_pizza@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I might get a bit of hate for this considering the community name, but Spotify is the one subscription I pay for and don’t feel like I’m getting ripped off. Basically every song I want is on there, they very rarely remove content, and the algorithm actually comes up with decent recommendations. I even like some of the other random features like Spotify wrapped.

But the main difference I see vs other subscriptions is that I don’t feel locked in, since there are no Spotify originals etc if they ever make the service too shit (which admittedly they might since they keep raising the price and trying to shove podcasts down everyone’s throat) I could easily switch to a different streaming service or even go back to just buying music outright

[–] wesker@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Wow, that's hot trash. Imagine subtitles on movies and TV being stuck behind a paywall.

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[–] CaptPretentious@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (9 children)

I didn't even know they did that, Glad I don't have an account with them. I'm partially deaf, most music I can't understand what someone singing. Those fun things people do of like "most common misheard lyrics" is basically my life. On the plus side I enjoy music from around the world because unintelligible music is unintelligible no matter where it's from. They're very few artists I feel like I can understand, and realistically I'm probably wrong.

In real life, I read lips to help augment my terrible hearing. Fun fact during the mask man dates during COVID, was probably the worst time for me. A lot of people I could hear talking as I could hear noise but I could not make out what it was. Leading to a lot of awkward conversations.

Anyhoo, that's all to say that for music that I do like I do have to see the lyrics. It's what converts the noise into words.

So, fuck you Spotify, My life's difficult enough already, I'm not paying your shitty service so you can charge me for my impairment.

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[–] FatTony@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I guess deaf people aren't allowed to enjoy music like the rest of y'all.

I'm so sorry but this is the absolute funniest shit I have ever read. 😂

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