this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2024
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Fuck Subscriptions

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

Expect use of strong language.

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

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

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

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

==========

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

Right to Repair/Ownership

Hedges Development

Privacy

Privacy Guides

DeGoogle Yourself

F-Droid

Stallman Was Right

Some other useful links:

FreeMediaHeckYeah

Louis Rossman's YouTube channel

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

Piped

Invidious

Nitter

Teddit

 

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[–] DaPorkchop_@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 years ago (6 children)

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

[–] MagnyusG@lemmy.world 20 points 2 years ago (9 children)

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

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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

[–] Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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

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[–] z500@startrek.website 5 points 2 years ago

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

[–] dogsnest@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

Excuse me while I kiss this guy!

[–] DaPorkchop_@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago

Makes sense!

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[–] LucasWaffyWaf@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

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

[–] june@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

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

[–] LucasWaffyWaf@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Oh almost certainly. I have ADHD, prolly autistic, and I've had many times where my mind stopped processing what people are saying. Which is bad when you work tourism xD

[–] june@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 years ago

Yyuup. It's bad in basically any job you have to listen to people during, and I always have to establish with friends that it is an honest mistake when I can't understand them and/or spaced out.

I'm ADHD and on the spectrum more than likely, and my therapist says that the cutting edge research pertaining to this is leaning towards combining ADHD and ASD into one conglomerate of symptoms because they overlap more often than not.

[–] snooggums@midwest.social 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

For me it is certain singers that apparently everyone else understands but I cannot without knowing the words ahead of time. Not just mumbling, some voices just don't register clearly for me if I don't know what they are saying.

[–] LucasWaffyWaf@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It can depend on the mixing, too. Not just in regards to volume, but also in how the vocals are edited. My recent obsession has been Dusk at Cubist Castle, shit's absolutely amazing. The way a lot of the vocals are mixed and processed are super cool, like layering the same lines over themselves five times over with subtle delays and panning, it sounds real cool! But it makes it sound a lot more distant to me as a result.

[–] snooggums@midwest.social 1 points 2 years ago

Yeah, thst is true. But I'm talking about some popular artists like Pearl Jam and Mase who everyone around me apparently could hear clear as day but I just heard mumble mush at first and could only hear the words clearly with printed lyrics in front of me.

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[–] absquatulate@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago (18 children)

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

[–] MajorHavoc@programming.dev 2 points 2 years ago (6 children)

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

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

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

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

[–] Ptsf@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (6 children)

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

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

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

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

[–] wesker@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 2 years ago

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

[–] FatTony@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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

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

[–] lenz@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago

Being deaf is a spectrum. There are plenty of people who still have some hearing, and are “hard of hearing”. There’s deaf people who can enjoy music through the use of hearing aids as well. There’s also totally deaf people who can enjoy music because of the vibrations. There’s people whose hearing is just bad enough that they don’t understand what anyone is saying without subtitles/lyrics. Deaf in only one ear, etc.

[–] Faresh@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I'm so confused by people under this post defending a company's scheme to make more money that disproportionately affects disabled people.

[–] Lightfire228@pawb.social 1 points 2 years ago

I pay for spoofie premium because it's convenient

But I'm not defending this money-grubbing behavior

[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Agreed.

I spent the last month converting all of my Spotify likes to MP3 files and ended my subscription in Mid-June.

Their greedy, shrinkflating, enshittifying asshole CEO can go fuck himself.

[–] CulturedLout@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

How would one go about this? So I can avoid doing it accidentally, of course.

[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

Well, I'm not advising that you do this, but I've read that there are tools on the Internet for converting Youtube links into MP3 files, and even better, I've read that the quality is a jump up from what Spotify streams to your device.

Interesting reading.

[–] ImADifferentBird@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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

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

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

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

[–] Getting6409@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago

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

[–] circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

I'm a bit confused. Do deaf people listen to music? Lyrics are generally freely available via Google.

Edit: see reply for a good explanation.

[–] thatsTheCatch@lemmy.nz 1 points 2 years ago

Deafness covers a broad spectrum of hearing difficulty, not just completely deaf. Most people that identify as deaf still have some hearing. I always forget that and had the same question as you until I read a comment further down.

It's likely that the person isn't fully deaf and so can still hear some music, but deaf enough that they can't understand the lyrics. Having the ability to view the lyrics in real time is handy rather than having to search them up all the time. Spotify also shows what lyric is currently being sung in real time, whereas you can't get that with a Google search.

[–] CaptPretentious@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

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

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

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

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

damn thats crazy, i'm out here with my 300GB collection of music that i own and control and i can just, add lyrics to shit if i want to.

I don't because i'm not deaf and i don't really care for lyrics all that much, but it's also just, automated.

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