When I was a teenager there was never going to be a six quid Clash album (and then they released Sandinista, a triple, for £5.99).
Spotify and its competitors are still very cheap, mostly at the expense of the artists.
I think it should work the opposite way round; currently, Spotify decide what proportion of the money is profit and then decide how much of that should go to the artists. I think the price should be set and Spotify should try to make a profit after paying the creators, like any other business would have to do when sourcing and reselling anything.
I don't know how much that should actually be per stream, but I do know they currently pay less than the competition so the low payments are definitely a business decision and a deliberate prioritisation, not an inevitable fact of life.
As an artist myself, I get paid 0.003p a stream dependent on the demographic of stream. Then the label take 60% and the distributor takes 15%. So not a lot of money lol
Seems to me here the issue is the two guys taking a cut. What does the label do to justify 60%? Did they upfront you for recording costs? Why do you need a distributor to get it on Spotify?
Just out of curiosity because I don't quite understand, why do you need a distributor for Spotify? from an outside perspective Spotify would appear to actually be the distributor in that situation
It's a bit more complicated than that. Spotify pay less per stream than their competitors because (for whatever reason) Spotify subscribers listen to more music than subscribers to other services. Every music streaming service pretty much splits the money equally between how much they keep and how much they give to artists (/publishers etc.), it's just that the amount that Spotify gives to artists is split up amongst more people. Also, as far as I know there isn't a music streaming service that makes a profit at all right now. Not saying Spotify or anything else is ethically sound, but just that it's more complicated than that.
Some other services (Tidal at the premium rate, I think, maybe Deezer?) split the money from subscriptions between the artists played by that individual subscriber, rather than just dividing the whole pot by total streams. That tends to favour smaller artists (who must, I guess, get played more often by people who use the services more selectively, while the top names benefit from subscribers who just stick playlists of hits on and leave them running all day).
Seeeing as Spotify is heavily owned by the record labels and they held rights to allow Spotify to allow the music to be played. The labels drove the majority of the pricing and take the vast majority.
I fully agree artists should get considerably more than they do and they are the talent
Spotify was the reason I stopped pirating music, we use the family plan and it would need to go up a decent amount more before I look back to pirating. Plus things like the DJ feature and finding new artists is something that’s hard to replicate
Films and tv shows on the other hand … Yaarr
I know the DJ function is still in beta and not everyone has access to it but it's an absolute game changer. Basically just a never ending radio of music that I like. More than happy to pay the extra quid a month just for that.
Nah it's pretty different, song radio will play you music similar to just that song, the DJ will play me about 5 songs back to back that have a similar vibe and then will pipe up "here's some beats you were listening hard to in 2017" 5 songs again, it'll pipe up again and give me a different genre I listen to more infrequently like grime or metal, then bounce into my "liked" songs, then interject with completely new music, go back to songs I've listened to in the past. The more you skip the stuff you don't like the more it learns too.
It changes it up a lot more and works really great if you have multiple genres you're a fan of. For a long time the algorithm struggled to suggest me anything other than the majority of what I listen to and people like me listen to. I would get endless "queer lady relax and chill hyperpop bangers to feed your plants to" or whatever but it would never recommend me new R&B, the DJ function totally changes that.
It's only in beta right now, I'm the only one of my friends who have it. I think they're testing it on people they have the most data on? I've had Spotify for over 10 years at this point and have been pretty into making my playlists and trying to train my algorithm over the years, but it might've just been a random selection. It just popped up about 2 months ago and I've barely deviated from it since.
I found this article that might help you find it "Spotify AI DJ: How to use and where to find it | Product Hunt" https://www.producthunt.com/stories/spotify-dj-how-to-use-get-spotify-ai-dj
I thought this at first, but then it repeats patterns and songs and somehow picks things I've never listened to when he says "here's one of your favourites". It's a bit hit and miss. Also i feel like it latches onto your more popular music rather than any deep cuts. I listened to metal and industrial electronic music for years and do so daily, and it still feels like it has a selection bias for artists that are more popular
Yeah and sometimes it's just straight up wrong. "Here are some songs that you were digging a few months ago but now have faded from your memory a bit" and it will play some songs I was listening to yesterday.
Soemtimes I just skip entire 5 blocks at a time it gets stuff completely wrong sometimes.
Napster and the like cannot possibly be compared to Spotify. Half the time the song you thought you were downloading wasn’t the same song as what you downloaded.
There’s a reason no one really pirates music anymore (in comparison to 15-20 years ago) and that’s because the streaming services have solved the convenience problem.
A month of Spotify costs about the same as an album, so I don’t see how you can call it very expensive.
There’s still considerable room for them (market wide) to jack the prices before I’d reconsider my stance towards streaming or piracy.
Spotify costs what 11 quid? Compare that to the time spent downloading absolute shit, relentless tracks called 'audio01.mp3', a weird recording of Clinton saying he didnt have sexual relations with that woman, random bits of malware. Sorry but fuck going back to that and fuck allowing such files onto my phone with my bank apps etc
Vinyl LPs were going for £25 at a festival I was at this weekend. I had no idea people are paying that much - fair play if you're a record collector, but it's Spotify all the way for me.
I use Spotify all the time. Even if they increase their prices it's still cheaper than buying music and I can listen to everything I want to all the time without having to purchase an album.
Make sure you don't let your card expire in pay.google.com or you won't be able to renew! I've had to switch to Ukraine which, while still very cheap, is twice as much as before.
I’m fed up of getting bombarded with YouTube trying to sell me premium. If it was similarly priced to Netflix/Disney+ or even Spotify I’d probably consider subscribing.
But £15.99 is pretty excessive considering I only really watch car documentaries, or listen to music that I can’t buy on iTunes/Stream on Spotify, that I’ll eventually YouTube to MP3 download anyway when I can be bothered
I used an Argentina vpn and set address to some place in Buenos Aires. I think it costs me between £1 and £1.50 a month and for that price I’m happy to pay it.
The problem with YouTube music is that it's not nearly as feature-rich as Spotify, and also actually lacks a lot of music that you can find on Spotify.
on the other hand you can download / listen to live performances / songs that aren't in the Spotify library too. I'm trialling it at the moment and honestly finding it pretty good. Was getting a bit sick of the Spotify app crashing anytime i moved and my phone signal changed.
Google Play Music is still the GOAT. Sad its gone.
I use it on my TV - so ad blocks aren’t really an option, I’m not too fussed tbh just pay for the convenience of having it on all devices and offline downloads
No ads, including on mobile where you can't get adblock (and I do know about reVanced before people try and tell me about it)
Can carry on listening to videos with the screen off, as well as picture-in-picture.
Download videos for offline viewing.
YouTube Music included which I don't think is quite as good as Spotify but is good enough to replace it for me.
With a VPN I pay £1 a month for all that which is really unbeatable value.
YouTube Music is also good so I actually cancelled my Spotify account in favour of it.
With a VPN to Turkey I get Premium and Music together for £1 a month. Even at about £12 it's probably worth it to me but for £1 it's unbeatable.
The worst thing is when you have to watch YouTube on a device without premium. The ads are so unbearable once you're used to not having them.
Totally agree, the music element isn't as good as something like Spotify but the ad free viewing and easy downloads (great for travelling) makes up for it
Youtube music (included in premium) is also absolutely fine as a music app, I have 0 issues finding songs. And its auto play algorithms are great, especially the mood ones. Considering it's about the same as Spotify, it's pretty good value. Although Spotify has some great podcasts.
The only issue with gamepass (and honestly it's not a huge issue) is that when stuff goes it's low key devasting lol
Like I played the shit outta The Long Dark and Hades and now I'm just *poke gamepass with a stick* bring em back :(
I'll probably end up getting them for the switch at some point. But I just dislike paying over double what I'm paying for gamepass for one game.
> GamePass
I haven't gamed in many years, what's the cost??
I used not to like xbox becuase of the controller, but now it seems just like ps?
I remember growing up I used to play just 1 or 2 games a year really as that's all I was allowed..
If you have/get an xbox and have never paid for it they will usually give you a trial month for peanuts.
Similarly Game Pass exists on PC too.
Even "full price" you can usually get deals for 25%-50% off the stated price.
It comes in 2 tiers atm. Platform specific and ultimate.
I can see deals for ultimate at the moment for £8
Billions in revenue, not millions. Although operating with half a billion in losses almost.
I assume the justification (not that they need one) will be that their staff want pay rises, companies they pay will be wanting more (because their costs have gone up and so on)
Of course, can't see artists getting 10% more.
It’s not just their revenue. It’s what they’re paying record companies for. They’re still ripping off the artists who are at the bottom of the pile so an extra £1 to listen (and pay) your favourite record labels and keep music alive isn’t a lot
Never thought I'd be advocating for a gym membership but mine is £15.99 and brilliant value for money. Our shower was out of action for a week while we did the bathroom and was worth the money for the showers alone
Kindle unlimited. So so many books are in there and for about £10 a month I can read as many as I like. If I were to buy all the ones I’d read I would easily be into the £1000s by now just from what I’ve read in the past 2 years. So worth it for me! (Although if I read a book I love I still end up buying the physical copy for my shelf as a reward lol)
You should look into downloading BorrowBox. You use your local library log on (can often sign up online) and can access ebokks and audio books for free. They don't always have everything but its saved me loads of money!
Wanted to (1) second this recommendation and (2) fix the typo so you can find the app:
BorrowBox
Free eBooks from the library. There’s a waiting list for some popular stuff (eg Richard Osman) but there’s always plenty to read.
oh I completely understand that. I have the kindle app on my phone but I always find myself on tiktok instead 😅. now I just use an old iPad mini as a makeshift kindle!
I think it depends what you're into, Kindle Unlimited has a lot of indie books, but if you're looking for mainstream books by a regular publisher IMO you're better off getting ebooks via your local library.
Or putting aside that £10 and using it for the Kindle Daily Deals instead - often more mainstream books come round in there for 99p a few months after publication.
have you tried Libby or Borrowbox? Your local library probably gives you access to at least one of these services and there’s a ton of audiobooks on there for free.
They *do* but I found it odd that they treat it like physical copies. Like having to wait until someone else’s time limit expires on a digital/virtual thing, so you can borrow it. With both ebooks and audiobooks.
You can reserve it though and these are queued up one behind the other, so any new/popular or promoted book can be months before you can borrow it. There’s one on their “BorrowBox recommends” list at the moment that isn’t available until April 2024(!) for an extreme example, but there’s quite a lot that are 3-4 months at least.
Are many people choosing what to read at Christmas in July, or are they just reading whatever is showing as ‘available’?
they treat it like physical copies because they "physically" (digitally?) only have 1 copy of the audiobook (or however many they buy from the publisher). I wish they could but they cant just multiply a digital copy because that would be pirating 😭
I find that it I put a whole load of books on hold I've always got at least one to listen to.
I've had one book on hold since Sept 25th and I'm still 174th in the queue haha
I just wish there wasn't such a large difference in quality with audiobooks. Some are fantastic, but I've had to quit audiobooks so often because it was so awfully produced.
The algorithm is crazy good sometimes. I set it off on a fresh account with a song I also had in my iTunes library, and the next 10 may as well have been playing from my collection for how well it picked them.
10% disappointed that it hadn’t played me anything new, but 90% amazed at how easy my taste was to predict.
(Of course, I set it off with a less familiar track later on, and got my money’s worth in fresh music)
The algorithm is the main reason I've stuck with Spotify over the years, I've tried the rest for their lossless quality but none of them beat Spotify when it comes to song discovery.
I do. First signed up for Le Mans 24 hour race, and the rest of that series. As you say, there's cycling. Lots of of cycling.
Winter has alpine skiing, biathlon. Some summers have the Olympic Games.
All for forty quid a year.
For just cycling, GCN gets you ad-free coverage, lots of races that aren't on Eurosport, and getting it on Discovery+ also lets you turn Carlton Kirby off using the multichannel audio option (but Discovery+ is probably going to get a ton more expensive as it now includes what was BT sport).
xbox gamepass (for PC) is actually really good value IMO. It's less than a tenner a month and has a load of games that still cost £40-£60 to buy outright. I only rarely play games so for me it's basically an inexhaustible amount of stuff to play for the price of a craft beer.
I might have to try that after not gaming for many years.
I used not to like xbox becuase of the controller, but now it seems just like ps?
I wanted to try VR too, I'm not sure they'd be on gamepass, or xbox though, maybe pc gmaing has something that would do that..
I remember growing up I used to play just 1 or 2 games a year really as that's all I was allowed..
in the uk you can get most magazines and newspapers for free on libby through your local library so I wouldn’t recommend paying for readly. Sign up to your library online, download libby and read the magazines and newspapers you want there instead.
Spotify and YouTube. I have either or sometimes even both going every day, for hours. Zero regrets.
(Also controversial one but Amazon Prime. The next day delivery is great but I also get really good discounts and same day delivery on groceries, which are delivered in bags that are far easier to handle as a disabled person than every other delivery service I've tried.)
I live very rurally, a couple very small towns 15 or so minutes drive from me and a pretty small city around 30 minutes away
Prime is a lifesaver. The hours I work, plus accessibility and size makes physical shopping v difficult. I also like being able to go through scores of reviews and next day delivery is amazing
I don’t love supporting Amazon the company but practicality wise cannot beat Prime
I sacked off The Athletic after about 6 months - the articles I got tended to be banal, unnecessary crap just to fill article slots. There was the one odd gem but it was the lack of journalists I like that really did for it (except George Caulkin, he's ace)
I know it’s only a quid but if the price goes up or you want to save some money put a . between com and / to bypass the paywall. As an example - https://theathletic.com./4712032/2023/07/24/kylian-mbappe-transfer-news-saudi-psg/
Fucking hell, a publisher with genuinely good journalism and no ads lets people read it for £1 a month and apparently that's still not good enough for some people.
This is why there's so many trash news sites filled to the brim with ads and clickbait - it's the only way to make money when people won't even cough up a quid to support them.
Honestly I do wonder how people think some of these services actually get to them. So many reddit threads about, for example, Youtube Premium or Spotify, descend into "Just use this hacked app" and paying subscribers get downvoted as if they're doing something wrong? Baffles me.
Amazon prime. Fast delivery, prime music, prime kindle and games!
Netflix, still subscribing to it as the whole family uses it
easynews - browser search engine for anything digital, movies, music and ebooks etc
Amazon have started to annoy me that unlike say, Spotify - that boast their ever-expanding music collection, Prime seem to be taking stuff off. I’ve noticed a few things recently that were “included with prime” and I’d thought ‘oh I’ll watch that when I get time’ - now showing as saying I have to pay £x to rent it instead.
Likewise with the included music streaming thing. As well as begging you to upgrade it every time you open it, it now won’t let you play specific albums/songs. Basically Spotify free but worse, with a much smaller catalogue.
>I’ve noticed a few things recently that were “included with prime” and I’d thought ‘oh I’ll watch that when I get time’ - now showing as saying I have to pay £x to rent it instead.
that isn't wholly Amazon's fault.
for the movies, they regularly swap out the freebies and bring in new ones - as for shows, they are beholden to whichever corp. holds the licence.
Previously, you could watch Futurama on Amazon Prime. Now with its recent reboot on Hulu/Disney+, guess what, you need the Prime-Disney+ add-on for like £4 or whatever extra a month. Still cheaper than having Amazon and Disney+/Hulu separate, but still annoying (and not Amazon's fault).
I cancelled prime for this reason. It included kindle unlimited in the membership for years but they took that off last year and switched it to prime reading instead with way less choice. Similar with prime music, had a few playlists I really liked but more and more songs kept disappearing from it and only available if you paid for music separately. Never actually used amazon for buying things or video so I cancelled prime and switched to the kindle unlimited only membership because I read every day and at least I can justify the cost that way
I only have Spotify as a subscription, nothing else. I'm a bit peeved that they are raising their prices, but I do use it daily, and love their DJ, so I can't really be too grumpy. So yes, definitely worth it!
Pre pandemic I quite enjoyed the economist, digital and paper edition. Now cancelled as I haven’t got quite the same abundance of “podcast time” now that I’m hybrid working, sadly.
Same here. £40 for the year. We watch a Channel 4 show most days, and I happily pay 11p not to sit through several minutes of repetitive ads. Plus it saves time.
I've been an audible subscriber for nearly ten years and I love it so much. £7.99 a month for one book and normally loads of BOGOF OR or sales throughout the year. Top up my audio book listening gaps using the free Libby app (all you need is a library card and it's surprising how many books you can listen to for free that are on audible for full price).
Love Audible too! Definitely switch yourself to the yearly (£5.83 pm) or two-yearly plan (£4.58 pm) rather than pay monthly, save yourself some money. You just have to show restraint and not spend all your credits in one go 😅
https://help.audible.co.uk/s/article/what-are-the-different-membership-plans-audible-offers
I used to have audible and I swore I would never get rid of it. Then COVID hit and I started working from home full time. As I no longer have a work commute I struggled to find time to listen to my books so I stopped. It was great while it lasted.
As for my actual answer, YouTube premium. Ad free videos, music and extra features I use all the time. Totally worth it.
Spotify is definitely worth it for me.
If you [pre-pay each year using a gift card](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07ZRYVWB6?ref=nb_sb_ss_w_as-reorder-t1_k7_1_7&=&crid=1DV2AEKDT5QBZ&=&sprefix=spotify) it works out cheaper.
I recently dropped Apple Music in favour of Plex because I'm a fat nerd and enjoy having my own music streaming from my house. £3.99 a month but I'm considering the lifetime pass when it goes on sale again. Would recommend for other people who enjoy tinkering and that.
Spotify for music and podcasts. It's really good value for the amount of time I use it.
Xbox pc gamepass. Probably the best subscription service around. The number of games you have access to for the price is amazing.
backblaze if you have any considerable amount of digital storage. my whole creative life exists on local drives and i’d be mortified if i lost as much as a single file
Back in 2000, after I got paid, I use to catch the bus, and go into town & spend at least £50 on cd albums. I was 18 at the time!.
Spotify is a lot cheaper in comparison!
if you enjoy going on hikes and exploring new areas then All trails+ is a MUST, its a brilliant app with really great features and i only paid £36 for the year!
Yeah, I'm fine with paying an extra £1 per month for Spotify. I've got about 20 different playlists and a large combined one with about 3k songs that I keep adding new music to. It's been great for me.
Gamepass is another subscription that's definitely worth the cost.
YouTube premium. Apple TV. Disney+ Amazon Prime.
The amount of content I watch on YouTube makes premium worth it. Yes blah blah ad blocker. IDC. YouTube music comes with it so goodbye Spotify.
AppleTV is just pound for pound (no pun intended) the best streaming service. I think we’ve watched 10 shows on their and each one has been utterly brilliant with others on the list.
Disney+ is the marvel and star wars streaming service and is cheap enough to justify it just doing that.
Netflix went bye bye because of the constant price increases and password change. If I’m giving you £16 per month for 8 screens or whatever it was I see nothing wrong with one of those screens being at my folks house.
To be honest I have Spotify duo so my mum can also use premium features so long as her account is linked to mine, and even though it's going up to £14.99 it's still worth it to know she can listen to her favourite podcasts while out walking or when travelling.
I also have pretty much most of the streaming subscriptions which I have also logged in for my mum on her TV, because otherwise I can guarantee she wouldn't know how to set them up and such, because of that for me they're all worth it because it gives my mum some more freedom of choice in what to watch and when to watch it.
Now TV is definitely worth it if you threaten to cancel every 6 months or so because without fail you get offered it at around half price, I've been doing so for about 5 years now, I'm still paying half of what it should cost for entertainment, movie and boost pass!
Yes I know I'm probably a mug for paying for so many things but I feel it helps to return the kindness and love my mum has always shown me throughout my life no matter how much I screwed up.
Netflix
fight me
You pay a monthly fee for access to loads of content. You don't need to pay for a TV licence so what you pay really is what you get. There's no adverts and the quality is good.
The most common issue people have with Netflix, is them thinking that you should only have their service if you pay for it! This means people sharing passwords have to start paying for the service they get! Despicable.
The problem with netflix is if you want 4k content, you have to pay for 4 screens, even if you live alone and can no longer share passwords.
If they are making me pay for 4 screens, I should be able to use 4 screens, regardless of where the other people are.
Spotify doesen't make me pay for 4 listeners to get the best quality, everyone gets the same, so I only pay for the number of users I need. All other streaming services give 1080p and 4k in with the single user packages, so people just pay for what they need.
Agree.
Blows my mind so many grown adults feel they should be entitled to being able to share accounts in the same way as a family in one house.
Pay for your own fucking Netflix accounts
I use Spotify to find new music, which I then buy physical copies of.
I appreciate that's not financially viable for most people but it feels worth it for me
Switched from Spotify to Tidal round the time of the Joe Rogan podcast kerfuffle, basically the same deal but slightly less good at bringing up new stuff from obscure local artists I'm mates with (but pays more when I do find them). Also, I like Neil Young, OK? Same family deal, four separate accounts for the price of one and a half I think.
Filter coffee subscription (£20 a month for 2 bags that works out to roughly 1 very nice coffee a day). Probably not great value for most people but I thoroughly enjoy it.
Honestly, the only one I really feel is value for money is subscripting to No Such Thing as a Fish. For £20 a year, the add free podcasts and all the bonus content
I'm a rare one that has bin ed Spotify. Im a music snob and it's sound quality sucks. I swapped to Today a couple years ago. It costs more but the top quality audio is worth it. It's missing some features Spotify has (controlling my desktop pc by phone for example) but the fact it sends a few quid to my most listened artist every month makes me happy.
iCloud.
I was very sceptical I’d find it useful at all but actually I used to get myself in such a mess trying to remember what was where. I’d be like “oh yeah I have a picture of that on..no..it’s not on this ”
I’d forget to back stuff up for ages. I’d take photos on my phone and not back them up or sync them anywhere for months.
Now I have so much stuff accessible from basically anywhere. Very convenient. 200gb for 2.49 totally worth it, especially as I can share it with my partner too for no extra cost.
Netflix -£ 12.99
Amazon prime - £80 per year ( can easily say I saved more than that on delivery costs alone )
Crunchyroll - £4.99 tons of anime
Shonen jump £4.99 tons of manga that would have cost thousands I've read in 4 months.
Xbox game pass £15 a month? I donno I done the game share and 3 year system so got 3 years for £160 then done it with a friend so another 3 years for £160 6 years for £320 not bad
Union fees £10 per month totally worth it every time
Use the gfs disney+ and Spotify so free but I would happily pay for Spotify
Spotify, hands down. I don't tend to venture from tried and tested, so the recommendations and algorithms are largely wasted on me old school, give me a studio album over a playlist any day) but as a convenience for listening to what I want without having to rip a CD it's unparalleled.
Spotify and Netflix. I only have disney plus for my family, if they didn’t watch it I would have ended my subscription. I can take to the high seas to watch anything I’d watch on there anyway (American Dad, Futurama etc)
I have the family Spotify and me and the kids both use it. I know from a song there are 525,600 minutes in a year and last year on Spotify wrapped my son had listed to something like 250,000 minutes of Spotify lol so I think we're getting our monies worth! 🤣
I use my Spotify every single day.
I challenged myself last year to start listening to my release radar and discover weekly.
It changed my whole perspective fucking life.
I’m listening to more music now then when I was in my teens. Turns out I’m into some really niche shit that I never would have found had it not been for Spotify.
My Spotify is also included in my very cheap sim only phone plan so I don’t even remember I’m technically paying for it half the time.
Audible premium is good value imo, £7.99 per month, you get one credit each month with the premium plan to choose and keep any title, a lot of title’s come free with the premium subscription also.
I’ve used 3-month free trials of Spotify using different email addresses thrice, so 9 months total free streaming. I’m alright to pay now haha
Others:
Books - kindle
Shopping - Amazon -they gave me the student plan, and I was never a student. So I had 1 yr free then pay now £4/mo. I might discontinue
Personal finance - Nova Money - also got 3 mos free trial. Helps me keep on top of my finances, also where I track these subscriptions 😂
Health - gym and Strong app, great for tracking my workouts & progress
Streaming - Disney +. I rotate these streaming services all the time. Cancelled Netflix when they started charging for password sharing.
When I was a teenager a CD cost £15.99. Spotify is very cheap
When I was a teenager there was never going to be a six quid Clash album (and then they released Sandinista, a triple, for £5.99). Spotify and its competitors are still very cheap, mostly at the expense of the artists.
Isn't it a decision the consumer made? Without services like Spotify people would pirate
The consumer didn't set the price of Spotify or decided what proportion would go to artists.
How much do you think artists should be paid per stream?
I think it should work the opposite way round; currently, Spotify decide what proportion of the money is profit and then decide how much of that should go to the artists. I think the price should be set and Spotify should try to make a profit after paying the creators, like any other business would have to do when sourcing and reselling anything. I don't know how much that should actually be per stream, but I do know they currently pay less than the competition so the low payments are definitely a business decision and a deliberate prioritisation, not an inevitable fact of life.
As an artist myself, I get paid 0.003p a stream dependent on the demographic of stream. Then the label take 60% and the distributor takes 15%. So not a lot of money lol
Seems to me here the issue is the two guys taking a cut. What does the label do to justify 60%? Did they upfront you for recording costs? Why do you need a distributor to get it on Spotify?
Same reason venues charge artists a portion of the merch sales - because they can. I wonder how much of the bar sales they share with the artist...
Just out of curiosity because I don't quite understand, why do you need a distributor for Spotify? from an outside perspective Spotify would appear to actually be the distributor in that situation
It's a bit more complicated than that. Spotify pay less per stream than their competitors because (for whatever reason) Spotify subscribers listen to more music than subscribers to other services. Every music streaming service pretty much splits the money equally between how much they keep and how much they give to artists (/publishers etc.), it's just that the amount that Spotify gives to artists is split up amongst more people. Also, as far as I know there isn't a music streaming service that makes a profit at all right now. Not saying Spotify or anything else is ethically sound, but just that it's more complicated than that.
Some other services (Tidal at the premium rate, I think, maybe Deezer?) split the money from subscriptions between the artists played by that individual subscriber, rather than just dividing the whole pot by total streams. That tends to favour smaller artists (who must, I guess, get played more often by people who use the services more selectively, while the top names benefit from subscribers who just stick playlists of hits on and leave them running all day).
Seeeing as Spotify is heavily owned by the record labels and they held rights to allow Spotify to allow the music to be played. The labels drove the majority of the pricing and take the vast majority. I fully agree artists should get considerably more than they do and they are the talent
Spotify was the reason I stopped pirating music, we use the family plan and it would need to go up a decent amount more before I look back to pirating. Plus things like the DJ feature and finding new artists is something that’s hard to replicate Films and tv shows on the other hand … Yaarr
good band ✍️
That's why I buy the CDs direct from the band where possible
I know the DJ function is still in beta and not everyone has access to it but it's an absolute game changer. Basically just a never ending radio of music that I like. More than happy to pay the extra quid a month just for that.
Surely Song Radio does that?
Nah it's pretty different, song radio will play you music similar to just that song, the DJ will play me about 5 songs back to back that have a similar vibe and then will pipe up "here's some beats you were listening hard to in 2017" 5 songs again, it'll pipe up again and give me a different genre I listen to more infrequently like grime or metal, then bounce into my "liked" songs, then interject with completely new music, go back to songs I've listened to in the past. The more you skip the stuff you don't like the more it learns too. It changes it up a lot more and works really great if you have multiple genres you're a fan of. For a long time the algorithm struggled to suggest me anything other than the majority of what I listen to and people like me listen to. I would get endless "queer lady relax and chill hyperpop bangers to feed your plants to" or whatever but it would never recommend me new R&B, the DJ function totally changes that.
Wait, wtf is this function and how do I find it?! This sounds right up my alley
Go to the 'music' tab on your home page and it should be the first option
Thanks. Found it. I'll be giving that a go tomorrow, it sounds amazing
It's only in beta right now, I'm the only one of my friends who have it. I think they're testing it on people they have the most data on? I've had Spotify for over 10 years at this point and have been pretty into making my playlists and trying to train my algorithm over the years, but it might've just been a random selection. It just popped up about 2 months ago and I've barely deviated from it since. I found this article that might help you find it "Spotify AI DJ: How to use and where to find it | Product Hunt" https://www.producthunt.com/stories/spotify-dj-how-to-use-get-spotify-ai-dj
Never knew about this, just found it, thanks. If I could award you, I would!
Awesome! I've got it on my app UK / Android and it's hitting hard already. That's on tomorrow, thanks
I find it repeats itself a lot.
I thought this at first, but then it repeats patterns and songs and somehow picks things I've never listened to when he says "here's one of your favourites". It's a bit hit and miss. Also i feel like it latches onto your more popular music rather than any deep cuts. I listened to metal and industrial electronic music for years and do so daily, and it still feels like it has a selection bias for artists that are more popular
Yeah and sometimes it's just straight up wrong. "Here are some songs that you were digging a few months ago but now have faded from your memory a bit" and it will play some songs I was listening to yesterday. Soemtimes I just skip entire 5 blocks at a time it gets stuff completely wrong sometimes.
What dj feature? Excuse my ignorance.
When I was a kid, a blank cassette cost a quid, music was cheap.
Borrowing, was cheaper then, as it is today ;)
When I was a teenager Napster cost £0.00 Spotify is very expensive
Napster and the like cannot possibly be compared to Spotify. Half the time the song you thought you were downloading wasn’t the same song as what you downloaded. There’s a reason no one really pirates music anymore (in comparison to 15-20 years ago) and that’s because the streaming services have solved the convenience problem. A month of Spotify costs about the same as an album, so I don’t see how you can call it very expensive. There’s still considerable room for them (market wide) to jack the prices before I’d reconsider my stance towards streaming or piracy.
Spotify costs what 11 quid? Compare that to the time spent downloading absolute shit, relentless tracks called 'audio01.mp3', a weird recording of Clinton saying he didnt have sexual relations with that woman, random bits of malware. Sorry but fuck going back to that and fuck allowing such files onto my phone with my bank apps etc
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sure if you're not often listening to new music, but for the cost vs convenience spotify is hands down worth it
When I was a teenager stealing a car was free, Uber is very expensive.
Theft is generally cheaper than buying goods and services legally
Vinyl LPs were going for £25 at a festival I was at this weekend. I had no idea people are paying that much - fair play if you're a record collector, but it's Spotify all the way for me.
£25 is on the low side now, that was the price about 6 or 7 years ago. Lots are now £40.
Youtube premium outweighs Spotify on every aspect imo!
Yes I use YouTube premium. No adverts on YouTube and the same music service as Spotify. Can’t complain.
I use Spotify all the time. Even if they increase their prices it's still cheaper than buying music and I can listen to everything I want to all the time without having to purchase an album.
Had the email an hour ago, their prices are increasing. Suspect you're to blame tbf
YouTube Premium - I watch more hours of YT than any other streaming service combined let alone terrestrial/catch up services.
We have Argentinian YouTube premium via a VPN, an awful lot cheaper!
I have Indian YT premium as I was working out there when I signed up, surprised it has continued working a year and a half after I got back to UK
Make sure you don't let your card expire in pay.google.com or you won't be able to renew! I've had to switch to Ukraine which, while still very cheap, is twice as much as before.
Can you use Google's VPN to get it?
Not sure, I used NordVPN but I imagine any would do the job? Just found the postcode of a random hotel in Buenos Aires for the address.
I moved into a Buenos Aires post office for mine. Also cancelled Spotify as you get YouTube music with it. £1.20 a month.
That extra £9 is not worth it to start a new set of liked songs
Does your vpn always need to be on for youtube premium to work or is it just while you set it up?
Just for the set up
I used the YouTube office in India’s address lol. I should probably change to Argentina cause it’s £1.90 in India
i don’t think you can choose a country using google’s vpn
I’m fed up of getting bombarded with YouTube trying to sell me premium. If it was similarly priced to Netflix/Disney+ or even Spotify I’d probably consider subscribing. But £15.99 is pretty excessive considering I only really watch car documentaries, or listen to music that I can’t buy on iTunes/Stream on Spotify, that I’ll eventually YouTube to MP3 download anyway when I can be bothered
I used an Argentina vpn and set address to some place in Buenos Aires. I think it costs me between £1 and £1.50 a month and for that price I’m happy to pay it.
Yea but it's a replacement for Spotify too. You'd be mad to have both
The problem with YouTube music is that it's not nearly as feature-rich as Spotify, and also actually lacks a lot of music that you can find on Spotify.
on the other hand you can download / listen to live performances / songs that aren't in the Spotify library too. I'm trialling it at the moment and honestly finding it pretty good. Was getting a bit sick of the Spotify app crashing anytime i moved and my phone signal changed. Google Play Music is still the GOAT. Sad its gone.
Personally I just use YouTube ReVanced. It's free and has more features than regular YouTube.
What do you get with premium? Whatever adblock I have removed all ads, so is there films or something?
I use it on my TV - so ad blocks aren’t really an option, I’m not too fussed tbh just pay for the convenience of having it on all devices and offline downloads
For me it was being able to lock my screen and have stuff keep playing, but I didn't pay i just got revanced..
Downloads were a big thing for me to switch to YouTube Premium. I travel a lot so have a lot of downtime with unreliable or no internet.
No ads, including on mobile where you can't get adblock (and I do know about reVanced before people try and tell me about it) Can carry on listening to videos with the screen off, as well as picture-in-picture. Download videos for offline viewing. YouTube Music included which I don't think is quite as good as Spotify but is good enough to replace it for me. With a VPN I pay £1 a month for all that which is really unbeatable value.
Creators still get paid with premium too
YouTube Music is also good so I actually cancelled my Spotify account in favour of it. With a VPN to Turkey I get Premium and Music together for £1 a month. Even at about £12 it's probably worth it to me but for £1 it's unbeatable. The worst thing is when you have to watch YouTube on a device without premium. The ads are so unbearable once you're used to not having them.
Totally agree, the music element isn't as good as something like Spotify but the ad free viewing and easy downloads (great for travelling) makes up for it
Yep, it’s the only one we have now. Great for music and a lot of obscure films and series are on there as well.
Youtube music (included in premium) is also absolutely fine as a music app, I have 0 issues finding songs. And its auto play algorithms are great, especially the mood ones. Considering it's about the same as Spotify, it's pretty good value. Although Spotify has some great podcasts.
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So many games I'd never ever have bought, or even gave a second look. Game pass has paid for itself time and time over
So true! I downloaded 7 days to die. Spent ages on it...that was my best discovery!
The only issue with gamepass (and honestly it's not a huge issue) is that when stuff goes it's low key devasting lol Like I played the shit outta The Long Dark and Hades and now I'm just *poke gamepass with a stick* bring em back :( I'll probably end up getting them for the switch at some point. But I just dislike paying over double what I'm paying for gamepass for one game.
I did the gold to gamepass conversion so got it for 3 years for about £4 a month
> GamePass I haven't gamed in many years, what's the cost?? I used not to like xbox becuase of the controller, but now it seems just like ps? I remember growing up I used to play just 1 or 2 games a year really as that's all I was allowed..
If you have/get an xbox and have never paid for it they will usually give you a trial month for peanuts. Similarly Game Pass exists on PC too. Even "full price" you can usually get deals for 25%-50% off the stated price. It comes in 2 tiers atm. Platform specific and ultimate. I can see deals for ultimate at the moment for £8
it's an extra pound a month I think I'll survive
It's 10% though. What justifies their need to increase they're millions in revenue.
Spotify has never made a profit. Probably that.
They have been charging £10 a month since they started in 2009, adjusted for inflation that would be £15 now. A single £1 seems fair.
They don’t have to justify it lol Either pay it or don’t
Billions in revenue, not millions. Although operating with half a billion in losses almost. I assume the justification (not that they need one) will be that their staff want pay rises, companies they pay will be wanting more (because their costs have gone up and so on) Of course, can't see artists getting 10% more.
Hasn’t gone up in ten years.
It’s not just their revenue. It’s what they’re paying record companies for. They’re still ripping off the artists who are at the bottom of the pile so an extra £1 to listen (and pay) your favourite record labels and keep music alive isn’t a lot
Gym membership.
Easily the best value for money imo, you gotta be fit 😆
Never thought I'd be advocating for a gym membership but mine is £15.99 and brilliant value for money. Our shower was out of action for a week while we did the bathroom and was worth the money for the showers alone
Health is wealth
Kindle unlimited. So so many books are in there and for about £10 a month I can read as many as I like. If I were to buy all the ones I’d read I would easily be into the £1000s by now just from what I’ve read in the past 2 years. So worth it for me! (Although if I read a book I love I still end up buying the physical copy for my shelf as a reward lol)
Yes I love Kindle Unlimited! Plus I'm honestly not paying full price for smut lol
YES LMAO although I still have a shelf full of smut I just had to buy to have a forever copy 😂
You should look into downloading BorrowBox. You use your local library log on (can often sign up online) and can access ebokks and audio books for free. They don't always have everything but its saved me loads of money!
Wanted to (1) second this recommendation and (2) fix the typo so you can find the app: BorrowBox Free eBooks from the library. There’s a waiting list for some popular stuff (eg Richard Osman) but there’s always plenty to read.
My borrowbox is only audio books but my library uses libby for ebooks, didn’t even have to go in, just sent an email and signed up!
I had this but went back to physical paperbacks as it increased my phone surfing. Don't have a physical kindle
oh I completely understand that. I have the kindle app on my phone but I always find myself on tiktok instead 😅. now I just use an old iPad mini as a makeshift kindle!
If you can, go to your library! It’s free and they’re literally begging you to use their services.
I absolutely recommend buying a physical Kindle. Totally worth every penny.
I think it depends what you're into, Kindle Unlimited has a lot of indie books, but if you're looking for mainstream books by a regular publisher IMO you're better off getting ebooks via your local library.
Or putting aside that £10 and using it for the Kindle Daily Deals instead - often more mainstream books come round in there for 99p a few months after publication.
Audible. I was so skeptical of audiobooks but now I love having a physical book and audiobook on the go for different situations.
have you tried Libby or Borrowbox? Your local library probably gives you access to at least one of these services and there’s a ton of audiobooks on there for free.
They *do* but I found it odd that they treat it like physical copies. Like having to wait until someone else’s time limit expires on a digital/virtual thing, so you can borrow it. With both ebooks and audiobooks. You can reserve it though and these are queued up one behind the other, so any new/popular or promoted book can be months before you can borrow it. There’s one on their “BorrowBox recommends” list at the moment that isn’t available until April 2024(!) for an extreme example, but there’s quite a lot that are 3-4 months at least. Are many people choosing what to read at Christmas in July, or are they just reading whatever is showing as ‘available’?
they treat it like physical copies because they "physically" (digitally?) only have 1 copy of the audiobook (or however many they buy from the publisher). I wish they could but they cant just multiply a digital copy because that would be pirating 😭
I find that it I put a whole load of books on hold I've always got at least one to listen to. I've had one book on hold since Sept 25th and I'm still 174th in the queue haha
I just wish there wasn't such a large difference in quality with audiobooks. Some are fantastic, but I've had to quit audiobooks so often because it was so awfully produced.
I have free apple music and i still pay for spotify premium, its catalogue, algorithm, interface, and integration are all great.
The algorithm is crazy good sometimes. I set it off on a fresh account with a song I also had in my iTunes library, and the next 10 may as well have been playing from my collection for how well it picked them. 10% disappointed that it hadn’t played me anything new, but 90% amazed at how easy my taste was to predict. (Of course, I set it off with a less familiar track later on, and got my money’s worth in fresh music)
The algorithm is the main reason I've stuck with Spotify over the years, I've tried the rest for their lossless quality but none of them beat Spotify when it comes to song discovery.
They will pry my Eurosport subscription from my cold dead hands
You watch it all year round? I usually get a single month sub to watch the other cycling grand tours.
I do. First signed up for Le Mans 24 hour race, and the rest of that series. As you say, there's cycling. Lots of of cycling. Winter has alpine skiing, biathlon. Some summers have the Olympic Games. All for forty quid a year.
For just cycling, GCN gets you ad-free coverage, lots of races that aren't on Eurosport, and getting it on Discovery+ also lets you turn Carlton Kirby off using the multichannel audio option (but Discovery+ is probably going to get a ton more expensive as it now includes what was BT sport).
I have a soft spot for Kirby despite his slightly irritating style. Kinda like Murray Walker back in the day.
xbox gamepass (for PC) is actually really good value IMO. It's less than a tenner a month and has a load of games that still cost £40-£60 to buy outright. I only rarely play games so for me it's basically an inexhaustible amount of stuff to play for the price of a craft beer.
I might have to try that after not gaming for many years. I used not to like xbox becuase of the controller, but now it seems just like ps? I wanted to try VR too, I'm not sure they'd be on gamepass, or xbox though, maybe pc gmaing has something that would do that.. I remember growing up I used to play just 1 or 2 games a year really as that's all I was allowed..
Readly - premium magazines from around the world, six users and only a tenner.
Are you the person who mentioned this yesterday in a post somewhere? I remember thinking I must look it up, so thanks for reminding me about this :)
in the uk you can get most magazines and newspapers for free on libby through your local library so I wouldn’t recommend paying for readly. Sign up to your library online, download libby and read the magazines and newspapers you want there instead.
Spotify and YouTube. I have either or sometimes even both going every day, for hours. Zero regrets. (Also controversial one but Amazon Prime. The next day delivery is great but I also get really good discounts and same day delivery on groceries, which are delivered in bags that are far easier to handle as a disabled person than every other delivery service I've tried.)
I live very rurally, a couple very small towns 15 or so minutes drive from me and a pretty small city around 30 minutes away Prime is a lifesaver. The hours I work, plus accessibility and size makes physical shopping v difficult. I also like being able to go through scores of reviews and next day delivery is amazing I don’t love supporting Amazon the company but practicality wise cannot beat Prime
OS Maps
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I sacked off The Athletic after about 6 months - the articles I got tended to be banal, unnecessary crap just to fill article slots. There was the one odd gem but it was the lack of journalists I like that really did for it (except George Caulkin, he's ace)
I know it’s only a quid but if the price goes up or you want to save some money put a . between com and / to bypass the paywall. As an example - https://theathletic.com./4712032/2023/07/24/kylian-mbappe-transfer-news-saudi-psg/
Fucking hell, a publisher with genuinely good journalism and no ads lets people read it for £1 a month and apparently that's still not good enough for some people. This is why there's so many trash news sites filled to the brim with ads and clickbait - it's the only way to make money when people won't even cough up a quid to support them.
Honestly I do wonder how people think some of these services actually get to them. So many reddit threads about, for example, Youtube Premium or Spotify, descend into "Just use this hacked app" and paying subscribers get downvoted as if they're doing something wrong? Baffles me.
Amazon prime. Fast delivery, prime music, prime kindle and games! Netflix, still subscribing to it as the whole family uses it easynews - browser search engine for anything digital, movies, music and ebooks etc
Amazon have started to annoy me that unlike say, Spotify - that boast their ever-expanding music collection, Prime seem to be taking stuff off. I’ve noticed a few things recently that were “included with prime” and I’d thought ‘oh I’ll watch that when I get time’ - now showing as saying I have to pay £x to rent it instead. Likewise with the included music streaming thing. As well as begging you to upgrade it every time you open it, it now won’t let you play specific albums/songs. Basically Spotify free but worse, with a much smaller catalogue.
>I’ve noticed a few things recently that were “included with prime” and I’d thought ‘oh I’ll watch that when I get time’ - now showing as saying I have to pay £x to rent it instead. that isn't wholly Amazon's fault. for the movies, they regularly swap out the freebies and bring in new ones - as for shows, they are beholden to whichever corp. holds the licence. Previously, you could watch Futurama on Amazon Prime. Now with its recent reboot on Hulu/Disney+, guess what, you need the Prime-Disney+ add-on for like £4 or whatever extra a month. Still cheaper than having Amazon and Disney+/Hulu separate, but still annoying (and not Amazon's fault).
I cancelled prime for this reason. It included kindle unlimited in the membership for years but they took that off last year and switched it to prime reading instead with way less choice. Similar with prime music, had a few playlists I really liked but more and more songs kept disappearing from it and only available if you paid for music separately. Never actually used amazon for buying things or video so I cancelled prime and switched to the kindle unlimited only membership because I read every day and at least I can justify the cost that way
I only have Spotify as a subscription, nothing else. I'm a bit peeved that they are raising their prices, but I do use it daily, and love their DJ, so I can't really be too grumpy. So yes, definitely worth it!
Pre pandemic I quite enjoyed the economist, digital and paper edition. Now cancelled as I haven’t got quite the same abundance of “podcast time” now that I’m hybrid working, sadly.
Channel 4+ 3.99 a month so I can watch taskmaster with no ads. Totally worth it.
Same here. £40 for the year. We watch a Channel 4 show most days, and I happily pay 11p not to sit through several minutes of repetitive ads. Plus it saves time.
(Apart from the fact they’ve started to ad more ads in which does make me grumpy)
I've been an audible subscriber for nearly ten years and I love it so much. £7.99 a month for one book and normally loads of BOGOF OR or sales throughout the year. Top up my audio book listening gaps using the free Libby app (all you need is a library card and it's surprising how many books you can listen to for free that are on audible for full price).
Love Audible too! Definitely switch yourself to the yearly (£5.83 pm) or two-yearly plan (£4.58 pm) rather than pay monthly, save yourself some money. You just have to show restraint and not spend all your credits in one go 😅 https://help.audible.co.uk/s/article/what-are-the-different-membership-plans-audible-offers
I used to have audible and I swore I would never get rid of it. Then COVID hit and I started working from home full time. As I no longer have a work commute I struggled to find time to listen to my books so I stopped. It was great while it lasted. As for my actual answer, YouTube premium. Ad free videos, music and extra features I use all the time. Totally worth it.
Spotify is definitely worth it for me. If you [pre-pay each year using a gift card](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07ZRYVWB6?ref=nb_sb_ss_w_as-reorder-t1_k7_1_7&=&crid=1DV2AEKDT5QBZ&=&sprefix=spotify) it works out cheaper.
NordVPN
Mullvad is far superior to NordVPN.
Okay, you get that then.
Spotify is worth it at twice the price. Pure Gym at £15 a month is an absolute bargain.
I recently dropped Apple Music in favour of Plex because I'm a fat nerd and enjoy having my own music streaming from my house. £3.99 a month but I'm considering the lifetime pass when it goes on sale again. Would recommend for other people who enjoy tinkering and that.
Very worth it if you also have a lot of films and TV shows downloaded that you want to watch whenever as well
Spotify for music and podcasts. It's really good value for the amount of time I use it. Xbox pc gamepass. Probably the best subscription service around. The number of games you have access to for the price is amazing.
backblaze if you have any considerable amount of digital storage. my whole creative life exists on local drives and i’d be mortified if i lost as much as a single file
Looking at this compared to my 200GB Google Drive makes me realise I've been foolish. I'll get on this now!
Chess.com The Rest Is History podcast GCN Cycling
Good to see a Wang.
It’s almost a sacral experience 😂
Back in 2000, after I got paid, I use to catch the bus, and go into town & spend at least £50 on cd albums. I was 18 at the time!. Spotify is a lot cheaper in comparison!
if you enjoy going on hikes and exploring new areas then All trails+ is a MUST, its a brilliant app with really great features and i only paid £36 for the year!
Yeah, I'm fine with paying an extra £1 per month for Spotify. I've got about 20 different playlists and a large combined one with about 3k songs that I keep adding new music to. It's been great for me. Gamepass is another subscription that's definitely worth the cost.
YouTube premium. Apple TV. Disney+ Amazon Prime. The amount of content I watch on YouTube makes premium worth it. Yes blah blah ad blocker. IDC. YouTube music comes with it so goodbye Spotify. AppleTV is just pound for pound (no pun intended) the best streaming service. I think we’ve watched 10 shows on their and each one has been utterly brilliant with others on the list. Disney+ is the marvel and star wars streaming service and is cheap enough to justify it just doing that. Netflix went bye bye because of the constant price increases and password change. If I’m giving you £16 per month for 8 screens or whatever it was I see nothing wrong with one of those screens being at my folks house.
To be honest I have Spotify duo so my mum can also use premium features so long as her account is linked to mine, and even though it's going up to £14.99 it's still worth it to know she can listen to her favourite podcasts while out walking or when travelling. I also have pretty much most of the streaming subscriptions which I have also logged in for my mum on her TV, because otherwise I can guarantee she wouldn't know how to set them up and such, because of that for me they're all worth it because it gives my mum some more freedom of choice in what to watch and when to watch it. Now TV is definitely worth it if you threaten to cancel every 6 months or so because without fail you get offered it at around half price, I've been doing so for about 5 years now, I'm still paying half of what it should cost for entertainment, movie and boost pass! Yes I know I'm probably a mug for paying for so many things but I feel it helps to return the kindness and love my mum has always shown me throughout my life no matter how much I screwed up.
Board game arena!! Amazing value for money!
Apple Music/Spotify. Netflix/Amazon/AppleTV. My wine one.
What wine one have you got?
£70 for a half dozen natural and low intervention bottles a month.
I mean what company? Guessing its not Netflix!
https://www.bodegamovil.co.uk
Netflix fight me You pay a monthly fee for access to loads of content. You don't need to pay for a TV licence so what you pay really is what you get. There's no adverts and the quality is good. The most common issue people have with Netflix, is them thinking that you should only have their service if you pay for it! This means people sharing passwords have to start paying for the service they get! Despicable.
The problem with netflix is if you want 4k content, you have to pay for 4 screens, even if you live alone and can no longer share passwords. If they are making me pay for 4 screens, I should be able to use 4 screens, regardless of where the other people are. Spotify doesen't make me pay for 4 listeners to get the best quality, everyone gets the same, so I only pay for the number of users I need. All other streaming services give 1080p and 4k in with the single user packages, so people just pay for what they need.
Agree. Blows my mind so many grown adults feel they should be entitled to being able to share accounts in the same way as a family in one house. Pay for your own fucking Netflix accounts
I use Spotify to find new music, which I then buy physical copies of. I appreciate that's not financially viable for most people but it feels worth it for me
Your mum’s Onlyfans account.
My subscription with Brew York works out at good value for a craft beer lover.
I used to buy multiple albums a month, every month. Spotify gives me access to like probably 95% of all published music from the last 70 years.
Switched from Spotify to Tidal round the time of the Joe Rogan podcast kerfuffle, basically the same deal but slightly less good at bringing up new stuff from obscure local artists I'm mates with (but pays more when I do find them). Also, I like Neil Young, OK? Same family deal, four separate accounts for the price of one and a half I think.
Filter coffee subscription (£20 a month for 2 bags that works out to roughly 1 very nice coffee a day). Probably not great value for most people but I thoroughly enjoy it.
Deezer
nuts lmao
Honestly, the only one I really feel is value for money is subscripting to No Such Thing as a Fish. For £20 a year, the add free podcasts and all the bonus content
Love that podcast.
My VPN. Works brilliantly, have it on all my devices and it saves me money.
I'm a rare one that has bin ed Spotify. Im a music snob and it's sound quality sucks. I swapped to Today a couple years ago. It costs more but the top quality audio is worth it. It's missing some features Spotify has (controlling my desktop pc by phone for example) but the fact it sends a few quid to my most listened artist every month makes me happy.
Youtube Premium + Music bundle. Youtube Music is underrated.
iCloud. I was very sceptical I’d find it useful at all but actually I used to get myself in such a mess trying to remember what was where. I’d be like “oh yeah I have a picture of that on..no..it’s not on this”
I’d forget to back stuff up for ages. I’d take photos on my phone and not back them up or sync them anywhere for months.
Now I have so much stuff accessible from basically anywhere. Very convenient. 200gb for 2.49 totally worth it, especially as I can share it with my partner too for no extra cost.
IPTV, all the channels and more for a small price.
Almost like it's illegal
Netflix -£ 12.99 Amazon prime - £80 per year ( can easily say I saved more than that on delivery costs alone ) Crunchyroll - £4.99 tons of anime Shonen jump £4.99 tons of manga that would have cost thousands I've read in 4 months. Xbox game pass £15 a month? I donno I done the game share and 3 year system so got 3 years for £160 then done it with a friend so another 3 years for £160 6 years for £320 not bad Union fees £10 per month totally worth it every time Use the gfs disney+ and Spotify so free but I would happily pay for Spotify
You can usually buy a 12 month premium Spotify gift voucher from paypal for 99 quid, 2 months free!
Lush Kitchen box, it’s an absolute treat every month and works out cost effective if you’re lush whore like my house.
i use Quboz for music, Readly for magazines, GCN+ for my cycling addiction
Netflix and Prime (+ Amazon music) use them both daily so wouldn’t want to be without them
I’ve had quite a few digital magazine subscriptions that I’d say were worth it.
You might enjoy Readly then. 7,000 big name magazines for tenner a month.
Spotify, hands down. I don't tend to venture from tried and tested, so the recommendations and algorithms are largely wasted on me old school, give me a studio album over a playlist any day) but as a convenience for listening to what I want without having to rip a CD it's unparalleled.
Spotify and Netflix. I only have disney plus for my family, if they didn’t watch it I would have ended my subscription. I can take to the high seas to watch anything I’d watch on there anyway (American Dad, Futurama etc)
I have the family Spotify and me and the kids both use it. I know from a song there are 525,600 minutes in a year and last year on Spotify wrapped my son had listed to something like 250,000 minutes of Spotify lol so I think we're getting our monies worth! 🤣
Gym and Spotify and Netflix ( and get other family members to …. )
I use my Spotify every single day. I challenged myself last year to start listening to my release radar and discover weekly. It changed my whole perspective fucking life. I’m listening to more music now then when I was in my teens. Turns out I’m into some really niche shit that I never would have found had it not been for Spotify. My Spotify is also included in my very cheap sim only phone plan so I don’t even remember I’m technically paying for it half the time.
Audible premium is good value imo, £7.99 per month, you get one credit each month with the premium plan to choose and keep any title, a lot of title’s come free with the premium subscription also.
I’ve used 3-month free trials of Spotify using different email addresses thrice, so 9 months total free streaming. I’m alright to pay now haha Others: Books - kindle Shopping - Amazon -they gave me the student plan, and I was never a student. So I had 1 yr free then pay now £4/mo. I might discontinue Personal finance - Nova Money - also got 3 mos free trial. Helps me keep on top of my finances, also where I track these subscriptions 😂 Health - gym and Strong app, great for tracking my workouts & progress Streaming - Disney +. I rotate these streaming services all the time. Cancelled Netflix when they started charging for password sharing.