And unlike streaming sites, you own what you buy, and the artist gets paid much better; you’d have to stream the same song 200+ times with a premium Spotify account to generate the same profit for the artist as just buying the song outright on Bandcamp.
I’ve been using Qobuz for a few months and it’s pretty good. They had a rough bug a couple of weeks ago where some songs would stop playing and skip to the next one, but it seems to be resolved.
If you go into settings, you can hook it to last.fm and get lots of cool listening stats.
I haven’t really encountered it, but I generally stick to my daily/weekly Q and saved playlists.
At least they’re aiming to clean it up. Spotify is adding a “verified” flag on non-slop.
allowing Palantir and supporting ice was my cutoff… I had premium for years…
worse was how suddenly my playlists I listened to often, the songs started sounding different/wrong… turns out they were silent swapping them for AI cover versions…
Pfff, too late spotify. I’ve already switched to one of your competitors. Allowing AI “artists” at all is unacceptable. No sale.
Which competitor doesn’t allow them?
Bandcamp
https://blog.bandcamp.com/2026/01/13/keeping-bandcamp-human/
And unlike streaming sites, you own what you buy, and the artist gets paid much better; you’d have to stream the same song 200+ times with a premium Spotify account to generate the same profit for the artist as just buying the song outright on Bandcamp.
Yeah, but Bandcamp isn’t an alternative to Spotify.
It’s an alternative to streaming.
Sounds like it’s still an alternative!
I’m using Qobuz. Seems alright so far, unless someone knows something I don’t (totally possible lol)
I’ve been using Qobuz for a few months and it’s pretty good. They had a rough bug a couple of weeks ago where some songs would stop playing and skip to the next one, but it seems to be resolved.
If you go into settings, you can hook it to last.fm and get lots of cool listening stats.
Qobuz still had a lot of music slop 2 months ago. They promised to clean that up but I’m not sure if they really did it.
I haven’t really encountered it, but I generally stick to my daily/weekly Q and saved playlists. At least they’re aiming to clean it up. Spotify is adding a “verified” flag on non-slop.
I get this when trying to setup an account on that site?
¯_(ツ)_/¯
Qobuz is probably the one streaming service I would pay for if they sorted out the huge gaps in their available library.
not exactly a competitor since it’s a music marketplace, not a streaming service, but bandcamp does not allow ai-generated music
Qobuz is BOTH a music store and a streaming service.
Yeah, nice try. I still block Spotify on all my devices.
allowing Palantir and supporting ice was my cutoff… I had premium for years…
worse was how suddenly my playlists I listened to often, the songs started sounding different/wrong… turns out they were silent swapping them for AI cover versions…
How was the switching process?
I’ve a family account that’s fully utilised so if I move I have to drag everyone with me.