Article is definitely worth a read.

> From 2014 to 2020, Spotify bought 15 companies, companies that build everything from data analytics to music and audio production tools to audio ad tools to licensing platforms, and podcasting networks.

> Spotify is directly mimicking Google and Facebook, and attempting to roll up power over digital audio markets the way Google and Facebook did over the internet. It has already done so in music.

As it exists today, the podcasting ecosystem is a very open system, with publicly accessible feeds and the ability to use any app/player.

I'm very afraid that if Spotify keeps this up, it's going to lead to a very fragmented system similar to the film/TV streaming industry (Netflix, Prime, Apple TV, et al.) which would require you to install proprietary apps and pay for multiple subscriptions to listen to stuff. Likely several different apps for different shows and companies.

Unfortunately, it appears that Spotify is motivated by increased profits and getting a market monopoly to completely destroy the open system that we have today, which will also make it undoubtedly harder for newcomers to enter the industry.

Right now Spotify complains about how Apple apps have an unfair advantage on Apple's platform, but they're doing the same thing. Spotify podcasts have an unfair advantage on Spotify's platform. I don't believe the platform should also be a content creator. This is really shitty of Spotify to do.

Spotify kinda sucks. And has since they got their first taste of success. I was living in Sweden when they launched and signed up. It was great then. And for a couple of years. Then some new investors came in and it went this direction, just extract value by all means possible, winner take all, destroy, destroy, destroy. Except for themselves. Thanks Silicon Valley vampires, you ruin pretty much everything you touch

I use Spotify every day and think it’s a good product. Why do you think it sucks? I’m genuinely curious.

The only good thing it has is its recommendation algorithm and the convenience of having all the available music in one place.

Uploading your own music sucks (unreleased tracks get blocked for some reason), tags are messy (there is no standard, the labels do whatever they want), you can't customize your listening experience at all (no replay gain, dynamic playlists, custom tags or equalization) and obviously not owning your collection (which admittedly is irrelevant for most people).

Having "all the music" is a pretty important feature though.

But yeah, you are renting the music from them so you have to give it back the way you found it. I don't really consider spotify a music player of the same sort as winamp or foobar2000, it's much more like radio where you have agency over the playlist rather than a local executable to manage and play your local files.

It would be interesting if they provided some a way to get an audio stream you can then further process for replay gain and other stuff, though honestly fiddling with all that stuff seems like busy work.

Classic interception attack