Just in case no one has said it, Pixelfed

Put it this way, Im not deleting songs that I dont like that are part of good albums.

I dont have any 1 star songs currently and barely any 2 stars because I just dont download those artists

I use Symfonium to do the same thing.

My rating system is a bit loosey goosey because its hard and tedious to catagorise music into more that 5 levels. Its mostly defined by how much/often I would listen to a song because that seems like a good base line.

Songs sonetimes get upgraded / downgraded on the fly and then siphon in / out to the respective playlists.

• 5 star: high energy, 99% wont skip, will listen to hundreds of times again
• 4 star: any energy just a good song, will listen to many times again
• 3 star: indifferent, might be a hit on the right day in the right mood, wouldnt listen to more than once a week
• 2 star: not for me, can understand why others might like it, wont make it in to any of my playlists
• 1 star: absolutely fucking not, mark for deletion (hyper commercial pop like the overplayed shit through the 2010s mostly fills this category)

How about you just sit down and have a meal without trying to manipulate or 1 up someone for fuck sake

Lego, the original 3D printer

I agree with most of that, however the mentality for liability is the same as “well what was she wearing” victim blaming. The parents arent the perpetrators.

I agree that parental knowledge to properly moderate kids usage of the internet is an issue - a skill issue. But that doesnt mean its their fault the kids get addicted to these things and exploited. The ones who openly do not care are a different story, thats child neglent as far as I am concerned.

I agree age verification and ID checks are absolutely not the answer and trying to censor the internet is not the answer. I think the answer more likely lies in holding companies accountable. There are reasons standards exist in many industries - to protect the consumer. As far as I am aware no standards exist when dealing with social media platforms.

Apologies I had a technical difficulty and posted the same comment several times.

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I guess in response to your last paragraph, the issue is the predatory nature of the attention addiction machines these companies make.

You could compare it to a child that got in to a van that had “free candy” written on the side. The door was open, if you assume someone was standing next to the van asking the kid to get in, that would be advertising. Now the kid gets abducted. Their “attention” is held hostage in the case of social media etc.

Now, would the parents have had to tell the kids to not get in to a van with free candy written on it for them to be able to report it to the police? Bad luck otherwise? Now what if every month a new van rocks up with more bells and whistles, its a different colour, its got flames down the side, whatever - the point is its different and cool and more appealing each time. More kids go missing. The “predators” have figured out what makes these kids tick and what makes them more likely to get in the van every time.

It’s a bit of an out there and confronting comparison but really, these companies are praying on your mental instead of your physical, which apparently is free game. They are still predators.

They know the harm their platforms cause, they suppress studies that report that harm, they cover it up, they fight tooth and nail and spend millions lobbying government to let them continue to do it.

Back on track sorry, schools are also responsible but you run in to the same issues once companies start targetting school kids like google did with chromebooks - the shittest PCs sold at a loss just so they could attempt to hook the younger generation in to their ecosystem of surveilance and advertising early.

Companies will NEVER protect the children. They will only ever protect shareholders, profits and their pedo CEOs.

Real change will only ever come from real (not sponsored) education, government legislation that isnt bullshit (I dont know what this would look like but ID checking isnt it) and holding the tech bros increasingly accountable for their fucked up apps.

We all did dumb shit as kids, but tech wasnt anywhere near what it is now.

These platforms need to be punished and held to account for the pervasive technology they have designed for profit, these things (FB, insta. Tiktok etc) shouldnt be able to exist in the first place in their current state. There were no guard rails put in place - just like the flood of AI, technology moves so much quicker than legislation can keep up and companys do really shitty things with that.

I believe it starts at a parenting level, but it’s much more difficult to manage these days compared to 20 years ago. Age verification bullshit is not the answer but parents need to be given some form of help againt these fuckers and their incredibly easy to access addiction machines.

Ah I see, that must be it

Owl - Ive been using it all day without issue? With an exchange account…

I agree, I think its such a bitch because a music collection is very personal and maybe your tags dont line up with what the general public think.

I’ve let Lidarr do the metadata for all my tracks as I would go insane trying to do it myself with the sheer quantity.

The tools we have these days to own and manage our own collections is incredible - its a shame so many people still use spotify.

Yea I dont think many soundtracks would be in musicbrainz that might be a bit difficult.

Lidarr handled my 60k tracks collection like a dream though!

Oh wow your catalogue is that fringe is it? Ive only had to add a few entries and I consider my tastes very broad and pretty niche for a lot of it!

Lidarr is your friend, my friend

Thats correct, streaming is not the problem. Streaming is just a technology. The companies are the problem.

Record companies dont walk in to spotify HQ and say “give me this much for this artist”. Spotify has a very specific payment model that fucks over small artists.

There are also many labels made by artists that are great and really support their artists so your point doesnt really work.

None of this is even touching on how spotify fills its curated playlists with slop so it doesnt have to pay as much royalties or how the only way it can make more money and appease shareholders is by constantly squeezing the consumer and charging more like this article. They have nothing innovating to offer to justify their price hikes.

I love streaming, I think it is incredibly convenient and effective for listening to music. I do not love companies that take an amazing technology and exploit it to destroy an industry that is already struggling in the name of profit.

Support your favourite artists directly or switch to other less scummy streaming services is my opinion. Spotify is destined to fail anyway or at least mutate into a “top 40” only platform with how many artists are leaving.

You could argue it matters because spotify has impacted the music industry negatively as a whole. Why would I want people giving their money to a company like that to make the problem worse?

Regardless of whether I personally use the service or not, other people funding it contributes to the downfall of something I like just for a bit of convenience.

I wouldnt make the same argument for every other streaming service because they all have different levels of ethics they abide by but spotify… no good ethics I can see.