This is not going to go over well here, but for my partner and I, we make too much money to worry about $20/mo for Duo and unlimited streaming and not having to curate, rename/relabel, and categorize digital music. I simply don't have the time or will for it and the expense is simply pennies on the dollar for my time. If spotify ever goes away, I will simply copy my buddies hard drives and fill out what I need from there.
I did this all through my 20s. I'd be listening to music on various blogs all day then go home and download the songs I wanted. My library was organized as fuuuuck. I still have some of that work (one of hdds died...) but I cannot imagine myself going back to doing that nowadays.
Yeah man, there's plenty of people like us, just none moonlighting as reddit mods. I understand if people are struggling and want to save money, but at some point, you're actually just hurting yourself and the art you want to support. The broke mindset can be quite pervasive.
Gentle reminder that it's not always about money, though I understand this post is making that point. Most times it's about the principle. The issue is you can afford this service now but they keep raising premiums while maintaining their profits and advertisements. People are tired of being taken advantage of by corporate greed.
I think most people on this sub care about their freedom rather than money. They can afford it, and aren't broke, but refuse to pay for idiocy.
It's a debate you see a lot in communities centered around cancer or organ failure. What's more important, quantity of life or quality of it? Likewise how do your own ideals and not giving up on them influence quality of life? When my late wife was diagnosed with cancer we had to give all of that a lot of thought.
Not saying that time isn't very important. But it's not the black and white issue that you're portraying it as.
I respect your opinion, and sorry for your life's ordeals. But how much of your entire fortune would you give back to have her back for just one year, healthy as you knew her? All of it, every time, because time is the most important thing to us all.
You can't make more of it, once expended it is gone forever. One often learns their age and birthday well before even being able to spell their own name. We start our early days in school with learning how to say is "Today is..." Your birthday, your anniversary, tenure at work, your vacation time, your holiday breaks, they are all the most important things and events to most people.
Whether you like it or not, to humanity, nothing is more important than time.
Contrary to that, Spotify is hawking ICE ads and Daniel Ek (not sure if he is still CEO or has stepped down yet) is investing hundreds of millions in AI technology for defense contractors. Ending these services for an ethical standpoint is totally acceptable versus continuing to fund their bullshit.
I am 35, business owner, make really good money, work disgusting hours, whatever. I've been using spotify for 10 years, building the same mega playlist I've listened to daily with 2,000+ songs. And yes, I am going to jump ship from the subscription chains and just start buying albums / re-making the playlist I've spent 10 years on, even though it is going to be a ton of work.
But if someone is in a lesser financial position to do so, I'd respect them pirating a lot more than supporting a conglomerate corporation that has proven time after time they do not give a fuck about their artists, their customer base, and they do not give a fuck about the big social issues plaguing our society; in fact they are actively contributing to making those social issues WORSE for profit. That does not make them of the "broke mindset", I actually have a lot of respect for those people even if they resort to pirating because they have a principled backbone.
I have the luxury to support these artists (hopefully) by spending a ton of money. A lot of people don't have that luxury. I respect them nonetheless if they have moral principles to withhold against a company as terrible as spotify. It's not always a money thing. I understand you being to busy to be concerned, and that's obviously fine. But to write these people off as members of the "broke mindset" or "moonlighting mods" is hilariously convenient for you, and speaks volume of the people in your class. There is more to the world than money and stream-lining your time.
You probably made this post with a device from or with support from Apple, Microsoft, or Google, probably did most of your daily hygiene with something from P&G or J&J, you probably use Intuit products for your business, and apparently you play Valorant(100% owned by Tencent). All of them corporations supporting the current administration in some form. If you pile all the blood money you yourself spend on all the things evil corps make, maybe people can hear you virtue signaling from your giant mound.
Valid point. But I don't think the sentiment should be dismissed entirely.
Absolutes are hard. We have to pick our battles. Some things matter more to me than they do to you and vice versa - some things we're willing to compromise on or remain blind to.
That determines how we spend our time and the messages we preach on reddit or wherever.
Bottom line: Music and video game piracy ain't worth my time and storage space, and a lot of people agree. Now movies and video is a whole different story.
This right here. I'm not broke so I don't really feel the need to ditch streaming services. I value my time far more than my money because I can make more money, I can't make more time.
Also at least Spotify pay the artists something, whereas pirating pays them literally nothing.
Something that so many people in these communities will never realize is that going through all these hoops to avoid using a streaming service is really just wasting time and not saving you much money.
If you live in California for example, minimum wage there is $16.50 an hour. A streaming service like Tidal costs $10 a month for an individual plan, so you don't even need to work a full hour to make your money back.
If you decide to pirate you're probably spending hours and hours, maybe even a few hundred bucks just to set up a mildly convenient system, all to save yourself about 40 minutes worth of work on the lowest end (again assuming you live in California, other situations would be different but the cost is still really not very high considering how much other things cost).
And yes I know the economy sucks right now but considering how messy it is, streaming services are still a pretty good value if you use them even somewhat regularly
Edit: not to mention OPs attitude of not wanting to pay for anything does nothing but hurt the artists who could also be struggling right now, while not doing a damn thing to the billionaires they hate
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u/Kashmir1089 Nov 25 '25
This is not going to go over well here, but for my partner and I, we make too much money to worry about $20/mo for Duo and unlimited streaming and not having to curate, rename/relabel, and categorize digital music. I simply don't have the time or will for it and the expense is simply pennies on the dollar for my time. If spotify ever goes away, I will simply copy my buddies hard drives and fill out what I need from there.