[HN Gopher] Spotify has shut down several API endpoints
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Spotify has shut down several API endpoints
        
       Author : leecoursey
       Score  : 106 points
       Date   : 2024-11-27 22:33 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (developer.spotify.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (developer.spotify.com)
        
       | leecoursey wrote:
       | Spotify announced they have shut down several API endpoints,
       | effective immediately. They have grandfathered in existing apps
       | that have extended mode Web API access.
        
       | leecoursey wrote:
       | Unfortunately, this breaks a lot of custom python programs I was
       | using to facilitate music discovery and to generate playlists for
       | myself.
        
         | Yajirobe wrote:
         | It doesn't affect existing apps
         | 
         | > Applications with existing extended mode Web API access that
         | were relying on these endpoints remain unaffected by this
         | change.
        
           | danielkuntz wrote:
           | Doesn't affect existing apps with extended mode access, for
           | which you have to apply and be approved. Gives you a higher
           | ratelimit so you can ship to production. Plenty of people (me
           | included) build small widgets for themselves without
           | bothering to apply for extended.
        
           | echoangle wrote:
           | > These changes will impact the following Web API
           | applications:
           | 
           | - Existing apps that are still in development mode without a
           | pending extension request
           | 
           | - New apps that are registered on or after today's date
           | 
           | Most people writing small scripts were probably using an API
           | key with development mode.
        
         | totetsu wrote:
         | Any great discoveries you mightn't have made otherwise?
        
       | smashah wrote:
       | Godspeed to all the OSS Adversarial Interoperability reverse
       | engineers! APIs should be a digital human right.
        
         | RockRobotRock wrote:
         | De-enshittify by any means necessary!
        
           | shiroiushi wrote:
           | Companies are going to continue to enshittify as long as
           | customers refuse to leave them. There's no incentive not to.
           | 
           | People who want to do stuff like making custom apps or
           | scripts that use these APIs should instead be building their
           | own music servers.
        
             | thejazzman wrote:
             | PlexAMP is awesome
        
             | sham1 wrote:
             | And when one is building this kind of a music server,
             | please support your favourite artists!
             | 
             | Ideally, if they have a Bandcamp or something similar,
             | where you can directly buy their tracks and albums from
             | them, do that. Usually this means that you can get access
             | to high-quality FLACs and whatnot, but it will also mean
             | that more money will go directly to the artists (usually
             | money going to the record label and whatnot is unavoidable
             | even with this, but there will still be fewer people in the
             | middle).
             | 
             | And well, if that's not a thing, then at least try to buy
             | the tracks from somewhere, so that they at least see some
             | return on their efforts. Maybe physical CDs and the like.
             | The point is just to be able to support your favourite
             | artists!
        
               | shiroiushi wrote:
               | Your suggestions are fine, but if you _really_ want to
               | support your favorite musicians, you should attend their
               | concerts and buy merchandise there. They personally get
               | far more profit from ticket sales and merch sales than
               | from selling music directly. And of course, the concert
               | experience is something way beyond just listening to a
               | track from Bandcamp or a CD.
        
               | bpye wrote:
               | Of course that depends somewhat on the venue and the cut
               | they take of ticket and merch sales too.
        
               | yurishimo wrote:
               | Uhm, is that actually true? How is the $10 I spend on a
               | digital album on Bandcamp not 90%+ profit for the band?
               | Sure, maybe the overpriced T-shirt has a bit more profit
               | as a raw number, but realistically, I'm going to buy a
               | band's merch the one time I see them every 3-5 years
               | (assuming they stay together and tour for that long). If
               | they release music more frequently, I would suspect
               | buying a digital album is more sustainable long term.
               | 
               | I think this is also why you see bands like Weezer
               | releasing more niche EPs/LPs. Heck, look at jam bands
               | like Phish or Dave Matthews who release every single live
               | show online as a separate album for fans to also buy to
               | relive the experience they had at a particular show. The
               | hardcore fans will buy the music, so it's in the band's
               | best interest to "keep shipping" and record as much as
               | possible.
        
               | saaaaaam wrote:
               | This is a myth unfortunately. Unless you are a really big
               | name artist - or a mod-level or above artist doing a show
               | in your home town - the economics of live and touring for
               | most musicians mean they are more likely to lose money
               | than make money.
               | 
               | Imagine a band with four or five members doing a 20 date
               | tour in 1000 cap venues where tickets are $40 each. Maths
               | looks good, right? $40,000 a night! $800k for the tour,
               | and then you can sell a bunch of merch an easily make $1
               | million. Great!
               | 
               | No.
               | 
               | A touring band might sell out every night of the tour but
               | more likely it's going to be 70-80% occupancy. So let's
               | call it 75%. Suddenly that $800k drops to $600k.
               | 
               | But then you need to pay the venue/promoter a big chunk
               | of that. Depending on what the promoter is providing that
               | could be as much as 40-50%
               | 
               | Let's go with a conservative 40%.
               | 
               | You're down to $360k now.
               | 
               | But you've still got to pay all the costs of the tour.
               | 
               | A 20 date tour probably means 25 days on the road, at
               | least.
               | 
               | A tour bus that could fit 4 or 5 people plus tour manager
               | (yes, you need one) and a tech/roadie/sound engineer to
               | get the set up right in each venue (let's say you've got
               | one person who can do all of this) is going to cost $1500
               | a day for the vehicle. Add in mileage, which is often
               | about $5+ per mile. So that 20 date tour with 25 days on
               | the road, and 4000 miles (coast to coast) will cost you
               | maybe $57.5k for the tour bus and driver and mileage.
               | (Gas, insurance etc are covered by the per mile charges
               | that tour bus operators charge). You're going to need to
               | park the tour bus during the day. That's maybe $200 a
               | day. More in some cities.
               | 
               | You're down to $300k now.
               | 
               | But wait - no one has been paid yet!
               | 
               | The tour manager will easily cost $450 per day or more -
               | and there will be days require for planning ("advancing")
               | the tour and wrap up days. So the 25 date tour might need
               | 5 days advancing and two days post-tour admin. That's
               | $14400, so call it $15k.
               | 
               | Your technician will cost about the same. Maybe less, but
               | you want someone who can do three things, so let's call
               | your manager plus tech/sound engineer $30k.
               | 
               | We are down to $240k now.
               | 
               | At this point it's worth mentioning that the artist's
               | manager and billing agent commission on the "gross" - the
               | entire amount the artist gets before costs - the $360k
               | fee from tickets after the promoter's share. Those
               | commissions are typically 20% to manager and 15% to
               | agent. So we need to deduct another $126k.
               | 
               | That gives $114k left.
               | 
               | None of the band members have been paid yet.
               | 
               | But, also, they need a support act for each show. If each
               | support act gets $500 then that's another $10k gone.
               | $104k left.
               | 
               | Everyone needs a per diem! 7 people on the road, plus
               | driver. They all need coffees, water, laundry, dry
               | cleaning, gym passes, cough medicine, whatever, plus a
               | "buy-out" for meals. So let's make sure everyone has $60
               | a day for the buy-out and another $20 for incidentals.
               | $16k. $88k left.
               | 
               | The tour - and all the gear - hasn't been insured yet,
               | and the band and crew don't have insurance for medical
               | emergencies while touring. Let's say that's going to cost
               | another $3k total.
               | 
               | And then everyone needs flights and cabs at the end of
               | the tour to get home. They'll have excess luggage and
               | instruments. So let's call that $1500 each. Another $10k.
               | 
               | That's means there's $75k left.
               | 
               | The band needs to rehearse and build their live show. So
               | that's probably a couple of weeks rehearsal, planning,
               | etc. So that's a 40 day commitment.
               | 
               | Five people, 40 days, $75k. Each band member walks away
               | with $15k - or $375 a day.
               | 
               | But how often are you going be doing a tour of that
               | scale? Once a year probably. And touring is gruelling.
               | 
               | If you're playing bigger venues with higher ticket prices
               | there is more money - but costs can also scale.
               | 
               | To make $75k from bandcamp you need to sell maybe 10,000
               | $10 albums.
               | 
               | To make $75k from streaming you'd need maybe 18-20
               | million streams.
               | 
               | And you can do that without the crippling costs of
               | touring.
               | 
               | Sure, if you're on a label you're going to get a lot
               | less.
               | 
               | But touring isn't a magic money tree, and it's hard work.
        
               | thisisabore wrote:
               | Counter point, from a small touring punk band, Direct
               | Hit!: You Don't Have to Lose Money on Tour
               | https://www.vice.com/en/article/you-dont-have-to-lose-
               | money-...
               | 
               | Have you ever heard of Direct Hit!? I think they squarely
               | fit in the mid-level or below.
        
               | gsck wrote:
               | Even the 75K is super optimistic. If you are touring you
               | want to bring your own equipment, much easier to run a
               | show that is roughly the same in multiple places then
               | relying on the house rig in multiple venues. Once you
               | factor in bringing your own gear (Almost definitely
               | rented, sound is expensive, lighting even more so), you
               | now need to factor in maintenance of the equipment and
               | rigging.
               | 
               | Also the assumption you can get one guy to do lighting
               | and sound is pretty unrealistic unless your show consists
               | of a static wash throughout the entire show. Theatrical
               | shows you can get away with it, but that's usually
               | because the man hours are heavily front loaded into pre-
               | production, but with live music you will need a dedicated
               | LX Tech and a dedicated Sound Engineer.
               | 
               | I moonlight as a lighting technician during the evenings
               | and weekends, mainly working in handful small local
               | venues, there's me running lighting and the sound
               | engineer doing his thing. The bands playing are easily
               | spending PS300 a night just on 2 people (And this is a
               | small venue probably about 200 cap in the main hall),
               | youd be spending much more for a touring crew
        
             | leoh wrote:
             | >Companies are going to continue to enshittify as long as
             | customers refuse to leave them.
             | 
             | True but--
             | 
             | Also going to remain the case as long as customers refuse
             | to pay for things they appreciate
        
       | toomuchtodo wrote:
       | Are any alternative APIs (non Spotify) available for the
       | functionality being deprecated in this notice?
        
         | danielkuntz wrote:
         | Not any good ones unfortunately! Great opportunity for someone
         | to make one while other platforms are still scrapeable.
        
           | leoh wrote:
           | You don't need to scrape other platforms. LLMs are already
           | probably pretty darn good at this.
        
             | echoangle wrote:
             | Can LLMs analyze song features (danceability,
             | instrumentalness, speechiness, tempo)?
        
               | CamperBob2 wrote:
               | Audio analysis is one of the easiest problems that ML can
               | deal with. The problem is, how can you use a pretrained
               | LLM for discovering newly-released music? And how do you
               | train future models without a source of new data?
        
               | echoangle wrote:
               | > Audio analysis is one of the easiest problems that ML
               | can deal with.
               | 
               | Maybe, but that doesn't tell me anything about LLMs. I'm
               | not saying that it's a particularly hard problem, I'm
               | surprised that an LLM specifically would be good for this
               | purpose.
        
         | toomuchtodo wrote:
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42266735
         | 
         | https://blog.metabrainz.org/2024/11/28/pissed-off-by-spotify...
        
       | RGamma wrote:
       | > Kills API
       | 
       | > Third party integrations continue to play an important role in
       | the way users can experience the Spotify experience through third
       | party apps. We evaluate the set up of our platform on an ongoing
       | basis and remain committed to ensuring it provides the best
       | possible opportunities for developers, artists, creators and
       | listeners.
       | 
       | Read that as: Hell yeah, we're gonna enshittify.
        
         | Pesthuf wrote:
         | Has the same ring as "we value your privacy. That's why we and
         | our 739 partners want to track everything you do, link it to
         | your real ID and sell it off to anyone willing to buy."
        
       | dxxvi wrote:
       | Long time ago, spotify allowed us to create, modify our playlists
       | through end points. Now, it's impossible.
        
         | tim-- wrote:
         | When did this stop being supported by Spotify?
         | 
         | https://developer.spotify.com/documentation/web-api/referenc...
         | 
         | https://developer.spotify.com/documentation/web-api/referenc...
         | 
         | https://developer.spotify.com/documentation/web-api/referenc...
         | 
         | I think you are talking about "Get Featured Playlists", which
         | is more geared towards Spotify created playlists, which is
         | under the 'Browse' tab in Spotify.
        
       | specproc wrote:
       | This is very sad, and another nudge away from Spotify for me.
       | 
       | I remember the API being a motivator for signing up, and I've
       | hacked together a few toys with it over the years.
       | 
       | Realistically now, the only benefit Spotify provides over my MP3
       | collection is that it's better organised.
        
         | theshrike79 wrote:
         | Musicbrainz Picard + PlexAmp is a pretty good solution.
         | 
         | Picard sets _all_ the metadata on the music and PlexAmp uses it
         | to create playlists with the OpenAI API.
        
           | specproc wrote:
           | Nice, thanks for the rec. I'd seen beets as well which also
           | looks good.
           | 
           | Spotify is definitely the lowest hanging fruit for culling on
           | my subscription list. The API was very much part of the value
           | proposition.
           | 
           | I don't believe it's even that good a deal for artists. I
           | heard the mighty Snoop Dogg makes like USD 40K a year off it
           | or something stupid like that.
        
         | leoh wrote:
         | Why?
         | 
         | Iiuc this is just about APIs for the recommendation engine
         | 
         | It's never been easier to generate recommendations (eg via LLMs
         | and other routes)
         | 
         | The core functionality otherwise remains unchanged in the API
        
           | specproc wrote:
           | On the API front, the endpoint that's being killed that was
           | most interesting to me is actually their music analysis one.
           | That was super-nerdy fun to fuck around with, I had a half-
           | finished project on that with an old job. Totally interested
           | in hearing of feature-parity alternatives I can run locally.
           | I'd also thought I'd sometime get around to doing some
           | network analysis with related artists too.
           | 
           | I honestly don't find Spotify's recommendations all that
           | great. I definitely experienced a broadening (perhaps
           | deepening) of my listening early on, but my experience has
           | been that the recommendations are pretty shallow.
           | 
           | I find after throwing together a playlist with some stuff I
           | like, it'll add a few more artists to my mental roster, then
           | nothing. I'll get thrown around in the same loop with the
           | same tunes and artists -- usually from the more famous
           | albums.
           | 
           | I don't want to sound too much like the grouchy aging hipster
           | that I am, but recommendations engines are just one of many
           | ways of discovering music, and I feel like y'know, the old
           | ways were better than just paying some company to do it for
           | me. I'm talking here about being a regular on a local music
           | scene, smoking weed with musicians, trading MP3s on the
           | sneakernet.
           | 
           | Another thing where we just pay some money for "convenience",
           | but are left with some hollow and empty algorithmic imitation
           | of something we once loved.
           | 
           | Your LLM suggestion made me do a little sick in my mouth.
        
             | leoh wrote:
             | Cool Good to know, I won't mention it to you again
             | 
             | Maybe you have ondansetron around
        
           | echoangle wrote:
           | The cool thing that's gone now was the "Audio Features"
           | endpoint ( https://developer.spotify.com/documentation/web-
           | api/referenc... ). You could easily get some important values
           | about every song, now you would probably have to run your own
           | analysis for every song you're interested in. That's a lot
           | harder and slower if you don't want to preprocess every
           | single song available.
        
             | Eric_WVGG wrote:
             | yup. The ability to make anything interesting with the
             | Spotify API just got flushed.
             | 
             | So happy I never got started on that little dream project
             | that's been knocking around the back of my head for a
             | couple years...
        
               | leoh wrote:
               | >The ability to make anything interesting with the
               | Spotify API just got flushed.
               | 
               | I respectfully disagree but ok
        
           | lxgr wrote:
           | Are LLMs actually good at music recommendation?
        
             | Spivak wrote:
             | No, they're absolutely garbage at it. I don't even
             | understand the thought to use LLMs in the first place. And
             | even if they weren't garbage the whole point of a music
             | recommendation algorithm is surface music that wouldn't be
             | in the training set so you need a way to recall likely
             | matches at which point you've built a recommen engine.
        
               | righthand wrote:
               | > I don't even understand the thought to use LLMs in the
               | first place.
               | 
               | You know how people believe whatever they read, hear, and
               | watch even though it might not be true? Well an LLM is
               | something people read and to get over the hurdle of
               | whether something might be true or good, you simply
               | embrace it and ignore that it could ever be wrong. I
               | don't get it either as I get upset when I find out a
               | source is mostly wrong.
        
             | ska wrote:
             | > Are LLMs actually good at music recommendation?
             | 
             | As far as I can tell, the only thing actually any good at
             | music recommendation is (some) humans.
        
           | grgbrn wrote:
           | So you're here telling people who were actually using these
           | APIs that we're wrong to be upset, because LLMs? Awesome,
           | super helpful, thanks
           | 
           | LLMs require data, as I'm sure you know. This is locking up
           | what was previously an interesting source of data, which
           | undermines your argument over the long term
        
             | leoh wrote:
             | Slippery slope fallacy
        
       | ribadeo wrote:
       | Spotify siphons yet more income artists should be getting into
       | corporate coffers and Daniel Ek's bank account.
       | 
       | No music lover should be using Spotify. They are notorious for
       | driving the downward trend in streaming payments to artists. They
       | are arguably worse than the worst of the old Music Industry we
       | were taught to hate in "tech disruptor culture 1.0".
       | 
       | Bandcamp revenue goes straight to artists, largely. I got 89 out
       | of 99 dollars paid on a release of mine.
        
         | leoh wrote:
         | Good to point out and I'm with you but... fwiw...
         | 
         | I think the intersection of people that are upset about a free
         | recommendation API being cancelled and people who want a music
         | platform that pays artists fairly is essentially zero.
         | 
         | So yeah
        
         | blitzar wrote:
         | > arguably worse than the worst of the old <insert industry> we
         | were taught to hate in "tech disruptor culture 1.0"
         | 
         | Always has been (meme)
        
         | kotaKat wrote:
         | Whatever happened to "app fairness"? Oh, right -- Fairness For
         | Me, Not For Thee.
        
         | rightbyte wrote:
         | If I had bought a CD every 2nd month for 10 years I would have
         | had 60 albums. That is about what Spotify costs.
         | 
         | Spotify has been making the music field even more winner takes
         | it all than the old status quo.
        
           | rchaud wrote:
           | The economics of the music industry were always heavily
           | tilted to the record labels, but Spotify somehow took it even
           | further. Their CEO is a billionnaire for what? Being an
           | unprofitable middle-man that pays $1 to the labels for every
           | $0.80 they get?
        
             | piva00 wrote:
             | It pays US$0.70 for every US$1 it gets, it's in their
             | financial reports quite easily to see.
        
           | dylan604 wrote:
           | Did you honestly buy music so infrequently, or did I buy
           | music more than the normal person? In high school, I'd buy an
           | album/CD a week. That wasn't just new releases but also meant
           | including back catalog to fill in the collection.
           | 
           | Are we just opposite ends of the music acquisition spectrum?
        
         | explain wrote:
         | Spotify pays 70% of revenue to music rights holders.
         | 
         | They aren't profitable.
        
           | rightbyte wrote:
           | Small bands can't have fans revenue from recordings in the
           | same way as before, since they share pot with Tailor Swift
           | and bot farms.
           | 
           | It doesn't matter if its 70 or 99.99%.
        
           | jmpz wrote:
           | They are: https://www.statista.com/chart/26773/profitability-
           | developme...
        
             | explain wrote:
             | Maybe, for the first time ever.
             | 
             | Though historically when Spotify has come close to making a
             | profit, record labels see it as an opportunity to demand
             | more or pull out.
        
               | oh_fiddlesticks wrote:
               | Many companies, for example, Amazon during its rise to
               | power, will choose to not profit and instead reinvest in
               | business growth and avoid tax. When there is profit,
               | there is more tax; As i understand it, if all the revenue
               | is allocated to expenses, it will benefit from large tax
               | exemptions. It's sort of like running a for-profit entity
               | as if it were a non-profit entity, though by choice and
               | not mandate.
        
         | tekla wrote:
         | Selling music itself pretty much never benefits anyone in a
         | significant way outside the top 1% of bands/whatever pop music.
         | 
         | This is why any touring band asks you to buy merch, they eat on
         | the money from merch
        
         | AdmiralAsshat wrote:
         | How has Bandcamp been after the last acquisition for the
         | artists? We (end users) were all predicting its downfall, but
         | so far the new owners haven't done anything _especially_
         | egregious yet, other than laying off a bunch of staff.
         | 
         | I've still got my hand on the trigger waiting to download my
         | entire library as lossless FLAC and jump ship, but so far it
         | seems like it's been mostly business as usual.
        
         | turbojet1321 wrote:
         | I'll open by saying that I've bought about 50 albums from
         | bandcamp and qobuz this year, so broadly, I'm with you about
         | supporting artists.
         | 
         | However, the whole "Spotify is terrible for artists" argument
         | seems ill considered. Terrible compared to what? I lot of what
         | I buy is relatively niche artists on relatively niche labels,
         | who would never have been signed to a major and would never had
         | had international distribution. These artists can't make a
         | living through streaming, sure, but I don't think they could
         | have made a living in the old world, either.
         | 
         | I still have a Spotify subscription - mostly for the family -
         | but I use it to listen to albums before deciding to buy them.
         | I'd buy a lot less if I couldn't vet it on Spotify first.
         | 
         | A lot of artists seem to think that they're entitled to make a
         | living off their art, which seems to me to completely
         | misunderstand the history of the music industry.
        
       | theshrike79 wrote:
       | Apple Music and Tidal play multiple times more to artists.
       | 
       | People are staying on Spotify just because of inertia and because
       | "everyone" is there, not because it's the best at anything any
       | more.
        
         | subarctic wrote:
         | I got spotify a year ago because I needed an easy way to just
         | put on some decent music from a playlist a friend sent me when
         | I had people over. Since then I've realized that basically any
         | song that I want to listen to is on there. Am I missing out on
         | a better experience on some other platform? If so, which one
         | and why is it better?
        
           | theshrike79 wrote:
           | Sound quality is better and they pay artists more. That's
           | about it.
           | 
           | UI quality is a subjective thing.
        
         | herbst wrote:
         | It never was. The idea of using a limited catalog as the sole
         | source of my music content is like assuming Netflix is all you
         | need on a TV.
        
           | terminalbraid wrote:
           | How can you say that? Spotify held a moment early on where it
           | was built upon pirated mp3s. At that time it was _the_ easy
           | way to listen to anything _for free_.
        
             | herbst wrote:
             | I remember the time where there was no party without
             | constant Spotify ads running over the speaker, that's the
             | only type of free account I know of.
             | 
             | Other than that my point was how incomplete it is and
             | always was. It could be nice as additional catalogue to my
             | music, but for me it's missing to many of my favourite
             | songs to use it as main driver.
             | 
             | Edit:// in Switzerland downloading music for private use is
             | no crime. So the initial situation was different I guess.
        
               | wkat4242 wrote:
               | Spotify is from Sweden, not Switzerland.
               | 
               | And they didn't start with illegal MP3s. They did have an
               | ad-supported free tier from the start though. But it was
               | not illegal. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotify
               | 
               | I think it's napster you're thinking of. That was an
               | illegal sharing platform and now a mediocre paid service.
        
               | jfim wrote:
               | It might be Grooveshark that they're thinking of, it was
               | notorious for quickly reuploading content that was taken
               | down by DMCA requests:
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grooveshark
        
               | crtasm wrote:
               | Were the claims made in 2017 shown to be false? I haven't
               | yet read the book - how widely accessible was the beta?
               | 
               | https://torrentfreak.com/spotifys-beta-used-pirate-
               | mp3-files...
               | 
               | https://direct.mit.edu/books/book/4136/Spotify-
               | TeardownInsid...
        
             | jmpz wrote:
             | Citation needed.
        
         | wkat4242 wrote:
         | I stay on Spotify because it has an open source client spotify-
         | qt.
         | 
         | I use Firefox on BSD which doesn't have DRM support so the web
         | versions of Apple Music and Deezer don't work properly. On
         | Apple it only plays the first 30 seconds of each song and I
         | forget what the problem was with Deezer.
         | 
         | Also a real app is way nicer than a web interface of course.
         | And with libspotify I can even change songs that play on my
         | mobile and control it through home assistant.
         | 
         | None of the others allow third party clients or open source.
         | Sure it's a niche reason but this is the reason I'm on Spotify
         | and not somewhere else. I've tried other platforms for a month
         | but it was crap.
         | 
         | I only listen to big artists anyway that are well compensated.
        
         | explain wrote:
         | Spotify pays 70% of their revenue to music rights holders.
        
           | nojito wrote:
           | Which is much less than Apple and Tidal.
        
             | piva00 wrote:
             | Tidal is in a downwards spiral because they are running out
             | of money, Apple subsidisies Apple Music with profits from
             | other parts of the company.
             | 
             | The pot splitting model Spotify uses is definitely not good
             | but the major labels are the ones with all the power,
             | without pot splitting they wouldn't accept licencing to
             | Spotify because they would make less money.
             | 
             | At every filthy corner of the music industry you'll find a
             | very sore spot: the big 4 labels control this industry.
             | From fucking with artists where contracts requiring artists
             | to pay back all "marketing and fees" before any royalties
             | are distributed, royalties split usually 80:20 or 70:30 for
             | label:artist, forcing artists to make their songs viral
             | before they can be released (without much marketing support
             | from the labels, the only reason they exist).
             | 
             | It's a passion industry, and just like any other passion
             | industry it's fraught with exploitation. Just look at game
             | development, underpaid, overworked, because there's always
             | someone else with passion to make a game.
        
               | nojito wrote:
               | How is any of that relevant when Apple Music pays artists
               | much more than Spotify?
        
               | piva00 wrote:
               | They subsidise that from other parts of the business
               | though.
               | 
               | Also they don't technically pay artists aside from the
               | self-released ones, most artists with bigger payouts
               | aren't self-released so Apple Music just like Spotify is
               | filling major labels coffers more than the artists'
               | pockets
               | 
               | That's all relevant on the comparison of why Apple Music
               | can pay more than Spotify, unsure what you didn't get but
               | willing to clarify.
        
               | threeseed wrote:
               | > Apple subsidisies Apple Music with profits from other
               | parts of the company.
               | 
               | No evidence of this and it doesn't even make sense.
               | 
               | EU would have a field day with it and Apple likes making
               | money wherever it can find it.
        
             | barbazoo wrote:
             | What are the numbers?
        
         | surgical_fire wrote:
         | Never tried Tidal. What makes it better?
         | 
         | I refuse to use anything Apple out of principle.
        
         | midtake wrote:
         | Apple Music has more live radio streams featuring artists too,
         | and the Apple Music 1 radio features real live commentators.
         | Whoever is at the controls for Music over at Apple is someone
         | who really cares about music.
        
           | threeseed wrote:
           | It's Zane Lowe who was a highly respected music presenter in
           | the UK.
           | 
           | He's very knowledgable about music, great interviewer and
           | seems to be in his element.
        
         | threeseed wrote:
         | Also Apple Music and Tidal have high bit-rate, lossless audio.
         | 
         | Once you've tried it there's no turning back.
        
           | anothername12 wrote:
           | And classical music gets proper special treatment!
           | 
           | People have been begging for that for ages on Spotify's
           | forum...
        
         | barbazoo wrote:
         | > Apple Music and Tidal play multiple times more to artists.
         | 
         | Seems like Apple pays 3x what Spotify pays? It can't be as
         | simple as that though.
        
       | chewz wrote:
       | I have used Spotify Audio Features API to display albums and
       | playlist on a radar charts showing acousticness,
       | instrumentalness, energy etc. And to make recomendations
       | (generate playlists) for similiar music based on these
       | charateristics.
       | 
       | It has been fun project but now I am glad that I have never
       | considered making anything serious out of it.
       | 
       | I did this project because my impression is that Spotify had been
       | always trying to steer me not to music that I like but to music
       | that Spotify makes most money of. It had always been paid
       | promotions over user's tastes in music.
       | 
       | And I am not on Spotify anymore for years now. Apple Music have
       | really tasteful recommendations and music curation.
        
         | ravenstine wrote:
         | I worked on the Apple Music frontend and can't help but be
         | pleased people are still using it and are pleased. I remember
         | recommendations being a bug priority, but I wasn't involved
         | with that. Spotify's recommendations aren't as bad as they used
         | to be, but it still thinks I'm more into early 2000s emo rock
         | than the kinds of metal I'm actually into.
        
           | tyre wrote:
           | I use Apple Music over Spotify whenever possible. The Spotify
           | UX has always been, to me, inferior. Thank you for your work!
        
           | andyferris wrote:
           | It's funny, I had the opposite experience - Spotify
           | understood my taste while Apple Music didn't. (Specifically,
           | Apple Music pushed a lot more Hip Hop/R&B music than I was
           | used to - this was in early 2016 mind you so things may have
           | changed since).
        
       | bilekas wrote:
       | > As we continue to review the experience provided on Spotify for
       | Developers, we've decided to roll out a number of measures with
       | the aim of creating a more secure platform.
       | 
       | I'm sorry but more secure platform to what extent exactly?
       | 
       | They're breaking tooling because someone might know what I'm
       | listening to? This is so frustrating along with getting a Spotify
       | update almost every morning.
        
       | h4ch1 wrote:
       | I recently just started using psst which is a Spotify GUI that's
       | much lighter. When you right click a song and go to show similar
       | tracks u get an array of sliders corresponding to the audio
       | analysis/features like valence, danceability, energy, etc to
       | tweak the recommendations.
       | 
       | It made a light and day difference for music discoverability for
       | me, while the default spotify radio keeps giving me songs i skip
       | instantly multiple times along with songs I've listened to a
       | hundred times, doing this through the API, is 100x better. I've
       | discovered 30 new songs that I love this past week while that
       | number has been steadily dwindling for the past 6 months using
       | Spotify.
        
         | fallinditch wrote:
         | I've always wanted a slider that gives increasingly eclectic
         | and random selections for the radio playlists.
         | 
         | Psst sounds good, I'll try it, hopefully the API changes have
         | not affected it.
        
       | mattigames wrote:
       | The official app doesn't even have a way to hide all podcasts for
       | good, you have to click "music" at the top every single time you
       | use the app, and now this, never-ending enshitifficattion.
        
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