We may have to move on from Spotify

[missizzy]

Honestly, ever since 8tracks went under I've been worried. Spotify now being the only big streaming service where you can make and share playlists was never a good situation. And the ads were a problem. I even contemplated switching to Premium to be rid of them. But that probably ended yesterday, when they started forces oodles of ads after every single song in what is most likely an attempt to bully us into paying without admitting they want to be a pay-only service, since actually becoming pay-only might cause high-profile people to start searching for alternative for sharing music with their fans. I do not pay bullies. The only reason I haven't deleted it already is because I'm kind of attached to the Critical Role playlists.
The thing that concerns me more is what happens to all the fanmixes that moved there. You can't really just upload songs to file sharing services the way you used to be able to, and that's never coming back. But where can they stream without ads ruining the effect? YouTube might not ruin it entirely, the way Spotify's current setup now does, but they're getting worse. Still, I think there will be something in time. There always is in fandom.
Meanwhile, if Spotify doesn't make a really quick U-Turn on this, I may set to work this weekend recreating the Critical Role playlists on YouTube, if only as a stopgap measure. Critters have done crazier things than that, right?
ETA: They're now claiming it's a bug. It may have been. Though that we assumed otherwise still says a lot.

Comments

[bluapapilio]

I wonder if more people will go back to the days of uploading the music somewhere themselves and posting it to LJ/DW.

[missizzy]

It's harder to do that than it used to be, but who knows what the future holds.

[moonvoice]

The biggest issue there is no matter where you upload it, websites are way more zealous about takedowns than they used to be. Which puts Dreamwidth in danger, and certainly means people will regularly have their content removed (and eventually accounts suspended) from places like - Dropbox, Soundcloud, even independent servers.

Hosting content that isn't actually yours legally to host on Dreamwidth actually goes against their TOS, which also means risking an account suspension. :/

[dewline]

DMCA will be invoked in any case, I suspect.