When Neil Young asked us to switch to Tidal, I went along and loved that it paid the artists 10x more per stream.
But Tidal is American owned, spotify isn’t…
I’m struggling on this one, a lot of the lil punk bands I love could really use the revenue but, y’know, trade war etc.
Anyone have any thoughts to assuage a guilty conscience on this one?
I’ve been on Qobuz for 2 years now and it’s great, the annual plan is a great deal and I have hi’fi gear and the quality is fantastic.
I just started with them too.
Easy to bring over all your playlist as they give you access to a music transfer service.
Qobuz. It’s French and it pays more than Tidal. It’s a privately owned company. You can also actually buy music from it in addition to streaming. Fuck Tidal.
If you buy music from there, does it include DRM that prevents you from playing it without their online service?
24-bit FLAC.
Very nice! Thanks!
Ive heard qobuz limits downloads so you end up not being able to actually own every song you paid for
Oh super cool, I will definitely check it out! Thanks!
Deezer is also french
Heya! Just wanted to say thanks. I tried Qobuz but had a couple of issues. Just tried Deezer and it’s been fantastic, works with everything and my tiny little obscure bands are all there! It’s like catching up with old friends I haven’t seen in far too long.
Thanks again!
I just switched to Deezer! It is pretty good so far, and they seem to have even relatively obscure Canadian music. Good francophone content, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Spotify gave Joe Rogan a platform, which likely contributed to the current situation in the US.
How many specific bands are you trying to support? It might be better for everyone if you just send them $5 directly and pirate their stuff.
Appreciate the thoughts!
I listen to a lot of weird little bands and sending them all $5 would be much more expensive than several years of streaming.
I also don’t see myself going back to non streaming, the convenience of almost all conceivable music in my hand is too much.
That being said, some folks have suggested a few French alternatives that seem worth a shot!
Spotify CEO also invests in AI military tech. . Try the French providers but also consider that many especially small acts put their stuff on Bandcamp at pay what you want/can level.
I like using 7digital, you can just buy songs outright and keep the flac files. No more unreliable streaming services! Just me and my own files!
Want cloud streaming? Get some dirt cheap vps and put jellyfin or something on there
It’s not going to help for Neil Young but for smaller artists always check Bandcamp first.
Edit: they are, of course, American, but so are many artists.
So Tidal pays royalties at about 4x the rate of Spotify, not 10. That is still only US$ 0.013 per stream, compared to spotifys US$ 0.003.
However that is not the whole picture - the big 3 music companies (All American) control the market and get the lions share of revenues from all platforms. They actually get more of the pot and all the other labels and independent get less.
So the choice between Tidal and Spotify for artists is not as significant as you think.
Meanwhile Tidal has been bought by an American conglomerate owned by Jack Dorsey (the founder of Twitter), a lot of staff have been laid off (Dorsey laid of a large number of staff in 2024 and said the company needs to be “more like a statrup”), and they removed the subscription direct-share with artists in 2022. It is very likely artists will be squeezed more and more to save money.
Tidal is just another tech-bro owned company. Even if we park all the Trump/Canada stuff for a moment there are plenty of reasons to dump it. At least Spotify is a publicly listed independent European company for all it’s many flaws. The rest of the market is sewn up by American tech companies: Apple Music, Amazon Music, Google YouTube Music.
Maybe your money is better spent outside the big US tech companies.
You should buy Canadian where possible, but don’t upend your life over it.
Feeling guilt over the whims of politicians isn’t very useful. Just do what you can.
I found it extremely easy to switch to French-owned Deezer from Spotify and saved money in the process.
Oh, I don’t think this is upending my life, apologies if I sounded dramatic. Just trying to balance my “help the artists” vs “help all of Not America right now.”
I wouldn’t say dramatic. I understand how you feel though. There is no ethical consumption under capitalism regardless of how hard we try. It’s infuriating at times.
