ripping CD's + buying flac files from qobuz/bandcamp + a good quality DAP powering some nice headphones is the answer.

better sound quality
no copyright/drm bs
no ads
more direct support for artists
not supporting the subscription economy

cost is the only downside, but even on a smaller budget the whole experience is vastly better than streaming everything and owning nothing.

YouTube music probably has the best recommendations/radio out of all streaming services.

Just that the streaming quality is not great.

"The design and user experience is the same since f***ing iTunes."

It is infamously not the same since iTunes

Either pirate music or use YouTube music with an adblocker on desktop

That’s a huge deal

We had all the freedom of files and traded it for subs cause it was convenient

We got played so hard. Sucks so hard to know and realize that yourself are just dumb cattle

Curious how yall go about music discovery after leaving behind streaming services? I can’t ethically justify paying Spotify but my one fear is that I’ll stop finding new s***

I was still downloading until 2022 but tried Apple Music and now I could never go back tbh

The way I look at it is like how long would I spend trying to download everything I want a month. If it’s more then a single hour, it doesn’t make sense to do that any longer and I might as well just keep AM

no brainer

Sad what happened.

Talk to human beings

Ktt2

Scroll thru new releases on iTunes every Friday

Lucida.to
DoubleDouble.top

I don't have any streaming service on my phone. Just use those sites on PC to download projects from Amazon/Spotify and transfer it to my phone. I use Musicolet as my music player app

Take an old computer and host your own cloud service.

Proxmox is free
Linux is free
Docker is free
Navidrome is free
Prowlarr is free.
Lidarr is free
Qbittoreent is free
Tailscale is free
Mullvad is $5 a month, which honestly you don’t even need a VPN anymore because the recent supreme court ruling states your ISP can’t shut you off anymore for Copyright Infringement.

Free version of Claude will help you set all of it up.

spotify master race

just check record stores new arrivals and mass download them

Brave browser makes YouTube premium free. Available on iOS , android, and desktop. Just make sure background play is enabled under media in the settings

This is old but niche subreddits can actually be good, record stores like the guy said, but Instagram is huge for me. I basically only follow all the musicians I like so they keep plugging other good stuff or touring with bands I never heard of and stuff

Adding to this post but Tailscale free tier now allows unlimited devices.

Subbing to a streaming service has allowed me to completely drop a laptop. Before, I was having to use my laptop to download music, add to iTunes and then sync to my phone.

I now only own an iPhone and an iPad.

You see this as a positive?

I used to have a room and walls full of awesome family and travel pictures

But I had to pull out my camera, take the picture, go get it developed and then hang it on my wall

Now they’re on my phone and I don’t need all that other stuff.

Were only 1,99 a month topmixtapes.com

find a spotify family upgrade site

Imagine not paying for YT Premium to not have to see ads. Then getting yt music for free

It's more ethical to buy one of those stolen credit card accounts