The ads urge listeners to “join the mission to protect America” by becoming U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, but users of the music streaming giant have taken to social media and Spotify’s website to complain, and announce their withdrawal from the audio platform.
The tough part is that my parents are on my Spotify family plan and not tech savvy at all to use anything that I would self host. I know I can patch Spotify app and self host content on my PC but there’s no way they could troubleshoot anything if something broke. For them Spotify works and me not using my own Spotify account isn’t going to accomplish anything even if I disagree with the companies decisions. I like Spotify and would like to keep using it because I have found lots of new music through it but it’s a tough spot. Companies take advantage of users that don’t know how to do anything else.
Why can’t you & your parents live without Spotify? I’ve lived without it my entire life and I promise you nothing’s lacking. Is your idle comfort & convenience more important than doing your part to STOP OUR CURRENT HITLER??
It’s interesting to see the hate for boycotts in the comments, as if boycotts are ineffective. They absolutely are – if they can get DISNEY of all companies to change their tune, they absolutely can work on other companies. Disney is much more diversified and well-funded than Spotify is
The reasons to cancel your spotify subscription won’t stop coming.
PSA: It’s not just Spotify.
"But the recruitment ads have been running on more than one music or streaming platform, with fans flagging concerns with the ads on Hulu, Max, YouTube, and Pandora, over the past six months. "
"In August, DHS confirmed to The Independent that it would be running advertisements on YouTube, Max, Amazon Prime Video, X, LinkedIn, and other internet platforms. "
“Similarly, Spanish-language channels such as Univision and Telemundo have also run ads featuring Kristi Noem urging “illegal aliens” not to come into the country. “Join the mission to protect America with bonuses up to $50,000 and generous benefits. Apply now join.ice.gov and fulfill your mission,” says one ad.”
Amazon video and X would be surprising NOT to see on the list.
Are these the same users that that vowed to boycott Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Substack? Or are these the same users that vowed to boycott when Spotify started banking Joe Rogan and other rightwingers?
I’ve stopped using all of the above years ago, I’m no hypocrite, but I also know the number of people who will drop Spotify over this are a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of its massive user base. Nothing will ever change when it comes to big social media/tech companies like this because too many people don’t actually care.
People care, but seemingly not enough to actually follow through and drop their subscriptions.
You have to be willing to cause yourself some inconvenience in order to do what’s right.
Fine, I’ll be that guy - if you’re not already boycotting Spotify for half-a-dozen other reasons, you’re probably not going to for this.
You never know what the final straw will be for any given individual
Welcome warmly anyone who joins the fold – no chastisement, only positive feedback for a positive step.
Exactly. Better late than scared back to the other side…
Plus not everybody sees every news story.
Agreed, no chastisement here, just pointing out that it’s a bit ‘preaching to the converted’. Though as someone in this thread considered it a final straw, clearly it was of some use.
It is for me. I’m glad I ran across this article.
I boycott nearly everything else already. I’ve kept Spotify as a little treat even though I’m not a fan of their business practices. But this is it for me. It will be a tough adjustment, but I can’t support companies who support fascism.
I was subscribed just so my Music Assistant could have my playlists and my kids liked the ease. I’ve exported those lists and just canceled.
I stand corrected.
I’ve been wanting to for a few years now as the service gets worse (where is my playlist radio?) but have been complacent. This is the last thing to push me over my limit. I’ll be transferring my decade-worth of playlists this weekend.
Absolutely. People are insanely slow.
Also often only leaving a service or similar if it personally affects them negatively, otherwise just seeming angry but literally changing nothing.
Nahh, all those other reasons are kind of hidden from the average person who doesn’t read music or tech news, most of them probably have no idea that Spotify sucks. I’m sure there’s even people hearing the ad right after witnessing ICE violence firsthand
I fall into this camp. I’ve been using YT Music more than Spotify for a while now and I haven’t paid attention to any controversy since they added Joe’s podcast. “Recruiting for ICE”, however, is one of those things that will spur me to instant action.
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I was thinking of re-subscribing, but I am probably not going to now.
does using a modified version that makes them no money count? asking for a friend
Is good but is also both illegal and traceable since Spotify definitely knows your IP address. Probably among the riskiest ways to get your streaming on
Yeah but they’ll just ban you. They’re not going to break down your door.
IF they care. I’m not talking about mobile apps here, you control what network requests go through or don’t. I don’t remember anyone getting arrested (or banned) for blocking ads.
edit: for clarity I’m talking about a specific patch on pc compared to modified apps on android
It’s been the most stable way for ages, and at most they’ll just ban the account. Either way I don’t know of anyone getting banned bc of this exact version. Maybe if you chat with spotify support and admit it they’ll care, but I highly doubt it’s illegal to block ad requests (or telemetry), adblock isn’t illegal and it’s no different to that.
Regarding my IP - every website I ever visited already knows it. If you’re not on static IP it’s insanely easy to change, rendering an IP ban useless.
edit: to make it simpler - there is no law that says you have to accept requests from an ad server, just like there is no law forbidding you from blocking them. And breaking ToS isn’t illegal by itself, at least over here.
I wonder how deeply integrated the ads are. Can a PiHole stop them?
Should be able to. Web players + adblock used to be a foolproof solution, I didn’t keep up with it though. I guess they could get some podcast ads and a few banners in.
Love my pinhole but it can’t stop YT ads
Does it count as boycotting if I use the service for free with an ad blocker?
Well fuck. Spotify is going to be the most difficult to let go but there seems to be every reason.
Its such a convenient platform, but such a terrible business. They seem to believe they’re untouchable.
Been self-hosting for months. Rebuilding my music collection has been an ardous but invigorating experience. I have been listening much more music than ever before with Spotify, with a way better user experience. Turns out I missed music.
What’s your tech stack look like for this? I’ve seen some guides on Lemmy here already for it. Always curious to see what other people come up with.
My stack is:
- Remote access: Bare metal Tailscale for the server and clients.
- Mobile music streaming client: Substreamer
- AndroidTV client: Chora
- Streaming server: Navidrome
- Fallback server: Jellyfin
- Collection handler: Lidarr with plugins
- Download handlers: Slskd, deluge
- Container manager: Podman
All services configured in a single rootless podman compose file that runs on a laptop.
Perfect! Thanks!
I moved to Tidal, and out of 10,000 tracks, I lost ~30 of them.
Other than missing the “Magic shuffle” which helps me discover new stuff, its a good enough streaming platform.
I switched to Qobuz about six months ago after also trialling Deezer, Tidal, Apple Music and YT Music. Highly recommended. Their curated playlists are excellent and I can’t believe what a different the higher quality and lossles bitrates makes. They pay artists way more than the other platforms though, remarkably, they’re the only (major) platform to actually publish per-stream figures, even if they’re only averages. Based in France if that matters to you. They only offer paid plans but do have free trials and provide users with a code for a third-party migration service to bring your playlists over.
Self hosted media server. I don’t get quite as much content but I still have thousands of hours of content … Back to the olden days!
Can I do something like this on a Raspberry Pi?
Something like Syncthing, but for hosting media would be fantastic. No need to deal with opening ports in the router and all those shenanigans. Something that you install and it just works, without any additional software. Is there anything like this?
Navidrome/Airsonic with reverse proxy is best. There are lots of Android and iOS apps that stream music from you server. Rather than a reverse proxy, you could try connecting via tailscale maybe? I think at minimum, this would require your phone to be connected to tailscale whenever you want to listen to music. Not sure if this would work or be practical.
As others suggested, a simple server with a subsonic api is all you need. tailscale on it and your mobile device and you can stream with a handful of open source apps.
I am using a pi to server my music for years but been self hosting my music since google music died - never got on the spotify bandwagon.
A little docker/podman is all you need. I also work on an free android app for this purpose as well that I just posted an update to yesterday.
You can. I started my Jellyfin server on a RPi3. Not great hardware for video streaming, but it will work fine for music. Could also use Navidrome. For local network only, that would be all you need.
To stream your media collection outside your home network, you’ll want to set up either a reverse proxy and set your ISP’s modem to forward the traffic to the reverse proxy, or set up a VPN like Tailscale. Tailscale would be the simpler option most of the time and is more secure for the average self-hoster.
Best I can do is jellyfin with a reverse proxy
Plex, but they’re getting big brothery. They do support relay through their own server.
jellyfin + cloudflare tunnel. Still big brothery, but less, pretty easy and not against their tos
Syncthing only works because it’s bursty. Once you start trying to run sustained data over it, people will run out of capacity pretty quickly.
Something could probably be done DHT/Torrent style. All the listeners share in the transfers, but the availability might be dicey.
For me, it’s Jellyfin + Tailscale. I always connect home and play from my media server and if TS ever gives me any lip, i’ll change over to headscale or just wireguard.
It’s hard to find an ethical player in the media space, especially the streaming space. It’s hard to even agree on what that would look like and how it would work.
Having said that, it’s clear that Spotify isn’t it. From the first time the client paused an ad when I muted my laptop volume I knew the enshittification was coming. I’ve been Spotify free for a few years now, but decline to recommend my current solution because it’s not much better. When I have time again, I’ll be sorting my local music library and physical media.
ICE ads would have sent me over the top. That would be a FAST cancel from me.
It’s hard to find an ethical player in capitalism.
I’ve not used Spotify since they provided Rogan with a platform, ICE ads was the next logical step for that fascist friendly platform.
YouTube (Google from Google music) showed the same ads, too
Fuck! Now I have to cancel my subscription! This sucks I guess time to set up music on my media server
Jellyfin and Lidarr is a potent combo for managing and streaming a collection.
What does it look like on the phone/client end, if I’m comparing it to using Spotify? Is there a recommended app?
I never really used Spotify, so I can’t make any direct comparisons, but one thing I can say is that Lidarr and Jellyfin will not help with exploring new music. They’re things you host yourself, so they can only interact with your own collection.
Lidarr manages a music collection and works primarily through a web page. I’ve only personally used it on desktop, so I can’t vouch for the mobile UI. Desktop UI seems good enough, no real complaints. You can use it to do things like index your collection, show what you may be missing, standardize folder structure, file names, and metadata tags, and automate downloads of missing content or upgrades for low quality content through bittorrent or Usenet. There might be third party apps to use it if you prefer, but I’m not aware of any since I never felt the need to look.
Jellyfin streams audio, video, and I think ebooks. It has a web client, too, but it also has official client apps for desktop and mobile. The UI is decent, pretty intuitive, no real complaints, but I feel like it could be improved somehow. Still, it works well, and it doesn’t cause problems. However, Jellyfin has had some security vulnerabilities in the past, so I think it’s recommended you not directly expose it to the internet. So instead of setting up port forwarding on your router, you’d want to use something like a VPN or maybe an SSH tunnel to get into the house from outside. That makes it a bit more technical to set up since you need that extra service to access it safely, but that’s only necessary if you want access from outside the house.
This is the way! I did exactly this (with Plexamp) and I never want to go back.
Good idea. Also give Qobuz a try. I did that and it went very well.
I just tried this today, tested it and then signed up for the free trial.
Then the app just stops responding. Eventually when logging into my account on the site to try and figure out what broke it tells me it cant log me in through a vpn. Even tho it let me create the account and play music through one an hour ago.
Bad enough that it has this restriction (that spotify doesnt) but to make the app just not respond to input is awful.
Vpn is kind if a neccessity in the uk now if you ever want to see imgur so back to spotify :(
Removed by mod
Just canceled and deleted my account. Swore I’d never do that, years ago.
If you’re not gonna start your own media server or don’t know how, tidal is the way to go
If you weren’t boycotting them when they bought exclusivity with Joe Rogan you’re part of the problem.
I quit Spotify the first time they refused to deplatform fascists.
Same. Cancelled since the gave Joe Roegen a platform for his fascist propaganda.
I wouldn’t say Rogan is a propagandist, just a convenient idiot that is a platform for fascists. Very slight distinction, but tables with Nazi’s making it a moot point.
Why would you uninstall the app? Cancel your subscription and use Xmanager to get their premium for free. There, that way, you don’t support them with anything and still enjoy the service. 😄
When I checked that a few weeks ago it was patched and not working, was I mistaken or did it get updated?
Works no problem. They’ve just changed how it works slightly, but it works fine. It now just directs you at a link to download and already patched app. You can still choose any version you want. It has this long ad before you can get to the link, but you can either block it with blokada or watch it to support the devs.
Okay, post your selfhosted and open-source/non-corporate alternatives here!
I have personal experience with FunkWhale . You upload music and it lets you stream or download. Simple, functional, nice. But missing fun features out of the box like sharing, scrobbling, and recommendations.
I’ve heard good things about Navidrome and Airsonic.
Considering setting up Jellyfin.
I just use Jellyfin, with Finamp for playing on my phone.
I am considering Jellyfin on a VPS host so securing it is a concern (though not a major one; I basically grok reverse proxies/nginx etc)
Interested in your observations as a user and admin
Different person but it’s really not a big deal. I’ve created a username for my friends, and they for me on theirs. Easy as pie.
I keep a local backup just in case something happens, just setup vps again and go. I use nginx to force https, and go. I’ve also limited to US, Canadian, and U.K. ips only so pretty much never see unusual activity trying to access it (if I ever share with someone elsewhere I’ll whitelist their specific IP).
I’m also running full IPv6 which just worked.
Edited to add: I only share with trusted friends who I know won’t two and delete the database or something. Just use basic security and you’re good.
limited to US, Canadian, and U.K. ips
oooh why didn’t I think of that? Imma do the same for some of my selfhost VPS (such as the abovementioned Funkwhale). I have friends in US/UK/Canada but as it turns out none in, eg China or Russia, which is like 85%+ of malicious connection attempts
I was hosting behind nginx for a while, however recently switched to tailscale VPN. The reasoning was less to do with security (though that’s a fine bonus), and more to do with the fact that I couldn’t get split DNS resolution working very well. As in, use one address while on LAN but a different address when I’m away from home, mostly relevant on my phone. I was getting frustrated with that and Tailscale just works really well once it’s set up.
Try radiooooo for a fairly wide selection of tracks from 1900 to the current year. There are featured playlists compiled by the site itself, but no user generated ‘channels/playlists’. Virtually every country is represented (although understandably you may not find any/much content from Azerbaijan in the 1920’s or Tunisia in the 40’s). Content is not divided by genre, instead by country of origin, decade and “Slow, Fast, Weird”.
Navidrome is what you’re looking for. Jellyfin does music but it’s better for TV, Movie, YouTube and books.
Client like symfonium can do some of the recommendations
I’ll start with I have not researched alternatives to Spotify with my comments here. Reason I have always had Spotify is that it’s just so easy to see options to listen to and BAM I’ve got hours of playlists and podcasts right there. Reason I never tried to do any self hosted media (I have an Unraid server and access to music) is because I don’t know how to get the above item without having to go out and find artists, download music, setup playlist, etc etc. Any thoughts on my laziness?
*arr stack my friend. I use docker-compose files for pretty much everything. Jellyfin as a media server for pretty much everything, many choices are available for a front end, but my symphonium purchase has paid for itself many times over.
This is pretty close to what I set up, but not exactly.
Get friends who also value keeping their music. Everyone uploads; everyone benefits
Navidrome’s alright, Jellyfin has, in my opinion, a bit of a better UI, but not by a huge amount, and it’s handled my metadata a bit better.
TY. super appreciate comments like this from people who’ve already done the work and tried stuff out
Plex or Plex amp.
For those that don’t know: host on home computer, stream, or download to phone (think download needs paid.)
Plex is freemium and only partly open source correct?
That makes me very nervous.
What parts/features are walled off?If downloading requires $$, then I guarantee it’s just a matter of time before you lose access to “your” music.
Is there a pure open fork?
Plex is freemium in the sense that the software walls off certain features. But the content is always hosted by you; Plex doesn’t actually control any of your media. You’re not hosting it on Plex’s servers. So there’s no way for them to realistically take your media away from you.
Jellyfin is the FOSS alternative, but isn’t quite mature enough to overcome the “friends and family factor” in many peoples’ setups. Basically, Plex makes remote access easy, by proxying the initial connection. The same way DDNS turns a dynamic IP address into a static URL. You host the media server, it tells Plex “hey, I’m located at this address”, and then your various devices simply ask Plex what your server address is. So in that sense, connecting with plex “just works” much easier.
Plex also handles all of the signup and onboarding stuff; Sharing your media libraries is as simple as having them create a Plex account, sending each other friend requests, then granting access to your server. Plex handles all of the backend authentication stuff, and they made their own account, so you’re not bogged down by managing a ton of different accounts.
With Jellyfin, all of that DDNS and account management stuff needs to be set up by you. The Jellyfin devs don’t host any centralized servers, so there’s no way for an app to ask what your server’s address is. And since they’re signing in directly to your server, (because again, no centralized service to handle that), it means you as the server owner are managing accounts for all of your friends and family. So if grandma forgot her password for the fifth time this month, you’re the one resetting her password.
There are other ancillary services that help smooth a lot of that out, but setting them up is a fairly obtuse process if you’ve never done anything like it before. And it also means that you’re setting up six or seven different containers, just to emulate what Plex does right out of the box. The demographics here tend to skew towards system admins and IT professionals, so all of the inevitable “psh, setting it up is easy. I did it in 15 minutes” comments are built upon a lot of external knowledge and experience. Of course, there is a relevant xkcd for that:
On the bright side, you can run both in parallel, and see which one you prefer. They’re just providing access to existing media folders (and indexing that media to grab metadata, album art, etc,) so they’re perfectly fine to run side-by-side. Many people (myself included) do so.
Thank you this was a really useful comment.
I happen to be an IT guy (but not much of a Networking guy) so between Claude and Stackoverflow I can probably set up “ancillary services”, esp if there are general guides somewhere.
I’m definitely willing to spend more of my own time and money if at the end I have something I truly own. Bonus if I wind up understanding a little more tech in the process.
Also worth noting that Jellyfin has several known vulnerabilities. Nothing catastrophic, but there are a few “people who already know your library’s naming scheme can access media without authentication” types of things. If you follow the recommended guides exactly, it means you’ll end up with the exact same library layout as lots of other users. It can largely be solved by simply using slightly different folder names, but it’s still worth mentioning in case you want to avoid some random bot being able to access your library. And the Jellyfin devs have openly stated that they have no intentions of fixing them, because it would require a complete code rewrite.
Most people will say that it’s best to avoid exposing it to your WAN, and simply use a VPN to connect to your LAN instead. But that completely blows the aforementioned “friends and family factor” out of the water, because now you’re requiring them to figure out a VPN before they can even begin to access your server. And it also means that they can only watch on devices that will actually be able to run a VPN connection. So your grandma’s shiny new smart TV will be completely unable to connect (unless you feel like being the family IT support, and setting the VPN up on her router).
And while we’re on the topic of smart TVs, some of the most popular ones don’t have a native Jellyfin app. You can sideload on most of them, but (again) we’re considering that friends and family factor. If your grandma has to sideload the app before she can even access it, it’s a non-starter for many people.
On the other side of the same coin, Plex recently disclosed a password breach. Hackers got emails and password hashes. So there are benefits and drawbacks to both systems. Of course this is largely solved by not reusing passwords and simply resetting your password to something new, but that burden is on the individual users.
When I deployed FunkWhale, I set people up with sub:Sonic on their phones. That is working well (except for the complaint that FunkWhale is “boring” and doesn’t have “features”)
A plus is that FunkWhale has a default web-based player, so as long as the device (eg Smart TV) has a browser, it can stream. Kludgey, but usable.
I had Plex for a long time, but switched to Jellyfin as they’ve been pushing more paid products even to lifetime-pass users. Very easy to switch, haven’t looked back.
Music Assistant with Lidarr
Interesting, I hadn’t heard of Lidarr.
The github is active, lots of features, cross-platform support,Lidarr is a music collection manager for Usenet and BitTorrent users
This gives me pause. My user base includes non-technical family members. And the model I am looking for is for us to upload our own music to share (like old-time mixtapes) vs straight-up pirating
Lidarr is to fill your collection with. Music Assistant is for playing. It creates a web interface that you can play to any smart speakers or just devices running the browser window will allow you to send songs to it. They are working on an app and hopefully it will be released soon
