Music and Digital Audio Player thoughts

[grayestofghosts]

I ordered some zines and was thinking hey I should make a zine but was at a loss of what to make and my husband suggested I make one on how to deSpotify, which would probably be a good idea because it's actually a pretty complex topic. Spotify both maintains a music library and facilitates music discovery, and maintaining a library by yourself is not easy in itself but music discovery since Spotify has been made more difficult by Spotify killing off alternatives. So it would probably be useful, even though I guess I am not entirely deSpotified myself (I am on a big family plan with friends and acquaintances, but rarely use it).

Otherwise when it comes to actual devices, apparently there was a big snit with the Innioasis Y1 community. The guy who developed the app that drastically simplified things (I could not get the original alternative, MTKClient to work, because I'm Not Good At Computer) was kicked out of the Reddit community because he was harassing people and I'm not really sure where to go from there. I have been using my Snowsky Echo Mini more often now even though the Y1 is clearly a more versatile device, but what am I going to do if I can't actually maintain the Y1? It makes me wonder if I should get one of the more upscale devices like a HiBy R4 or whatever even though they're basically phones, just because this is kinda nuts. I don't know. Apparently the chip shortage is going to make DAPs, especially low price ones, harder to get. Snowsky is releasing a new player, the Disc, that I'm not really that hyped about but we'll see. I wish they would just put bookmarking and playlists on the Echo Mini, that would fix most of my problems.

Comments

[axolotls]

Can you contact them and ask, maybe? Make them aware that users want it.

[grayestofghosts]

I posted on the announcement that the guy was banned about it, and haven't really gotten a good response. I am not sure if anyone is going to do anything about it.

[axolotls]

RIP. My condolences.

[tozka]

That sounds like a great idea for a zine! Especially since yeah, music discovery used to be, like, "I heard this song on the radio and it was neat" or your friends told you stuff, and now so many people depend on an algorithmic choice they've forgotten (or don't know) how to do without it.

Apparently the chip shortage is going to make DAPs, especially low price ones, harder to get.
UGH.

[grayestofghosts]

I mean there was the radio, music magazines, listening stations at record stores... going through my music library I realize a lot of stuff I found through the 8tracks service where users made playlists to put online and it looks like all the user-curated-playlist sites have gotten edged out of the market. Like, you CAN find human-made, themed playlists on Spotify, but they're nigh impossible to browse unless a user gives you a direct link to one. Everything routes you toward their algorithm. It sucks.

The chip shortage is so crazy. They're talking about not being able to increase capacity until 2027. It seems like no matter what happens to the AI market (which is due for a crash), we're going to have a shortage. It sucks.