That was a gloomy Saturday afternoon perhaps, several years ago, when I cancelled.
I agree with the author completley. And Spotify is just one of the practically all mainstream black pattern conglomerates ruining a nice idea and the entertainment with pushy and greedy selfish rhetorics, useless for me, driving me away. When you have little chance finding content you care about, when there is severly limited navigation with no reliable structure but secretive algorithms push mostly garbage or hype into your face and the 'improvement' of the UI is more like serving the companies need, sacrifying usability for you, then I better get back to the stone age of content access (end of '90, beginning of '00, others call it golden years actually), put in the effort building my own entertainment for the sake of own enjoyment rather than swallowing what they cook for me with secret ingredients, satisfying only those arrogant folks cooking it.
I built a home music server and a good HiFi system using Raspberry's and files (actually the immediate reson leaving Spotify was their stubborn unwillingness introducing HiFi quality after years and years of empty promises but degrading UI meanwhile, putting effort into that and other never missed rotted deliveries). With fairly basic player with its own annoyances, but at least those are unpolished incompleteness not intentionally forced through destruction of good old functionality along stupid self serving hollow sounding strategy, appearances instead of essence. Now there are no disappearing favourite songs anymore, re-learning behaviour of the software at each update annoyed out of me, no more feeling that I am for the software and not the software for me. I am more satisfied now.
Movie/TV streaming, watch on 'demand' (HAHH! more like watch on shoving it down your throat!) TV apps, music streaming, but I could count here all social media with their opaque and orderless presentation of not finding those I need but getting what other push at me kind of operation that repelled me enough not to get involved with them in the first place (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube after a while, and a lot more newer that is not considered stone age stuff by modern folks riding the trend like Texans ride bulls), most news sites or simply manufacturer web too that is not for informing you but to shove their whatever down your throat with force. I do not need that, thank you, try the others. It is a much better feeling to settle myself into a quiet but cosy corner of the Internet (HN included) than consuming what is poured at us.
There're decent communities of people who like to manage their own tech (example: r/selfhosted) and those that like to assemble their own library (r/musichoarder) and then everything in between - so there are options for this.
Wanted to use Spotify, used it, but cannot rely on it. It is not serving (this) client's needs but their own. I did not want to invest into self hosting and managing collections but the way content mmanagers do is just ruining fun. This is the least bad, doing by myself, so I can enjoy listening to music again (after the investment period of building it up). Without being tossed around by others want me to manipulate into their own kind of way, forcing me to get used to new ways of their own forced through, ruing desired ones already existed. That is no fun!
I agree with the author completley. And Spotify is just one of the practically all mainstream black pattern conglomerates ruining a nice idea and the entertainment with pushy and greedy selfish rhetorics, useless for me, driving me away. When you have little chance finding content you care about, when there is severly limited navigation with no reliable structure but secretive algorithms push mostly garbage or hype into your face and the 'improvement' of the UI is more like serving the companies need, sacrifying usability for you, then I better get back to the stone age of content access (end of '90, beginning of '00, others call it golden years actually), put in the effort building my own entertainment for the sake of own enjoyment rather than swallowing what they cook for me with secret ingredients, satisfying only those arrogant folks cooking it.
I built a home music server and a good HiFi system using Raspberry's and files (actually the immediate reson leaving Spotify was their stubborn unwillingness introducing HiFi quality after years and years of empty promises but degrading UI meanwhile, putting effort into that and other never missed rotted deliveries). With fairly basic player with its own annoyances, but at least those are unpolished incompleteness not intentionally forced through destruction of good old functionality along stupid self serving hollow sounding strategy, appearances instead of essence. Now there are no disappearing favourite songs anymore, re-learning behaviour of the software at each update annoyed out of me, no more feeling that I am for the software and not the software for me. I am more satisfied now.
Movie/TV streaming, watch on 'demand' (HAHH! more like watch on shoving it down your throat!) TV apps, music streaming, but I could count here all social media with their opaque and orderless presentation of not finding those I need but getting what other push at me kind of operation that repelled me enough not to get involved with them in the first place (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube after a while, and a lot more newer that is not considered stone age stuff by modern folks riding the trend like Texans ride bulls), most news sites or simply manufacturer web too that is not for informing you but to shove their whatever down your throat with force. I do not need that, thank you, try the others. It is a much better feeling to settle myself into a quiet but cosy corner of the Internet (HN included) than consuming what is poured at us.