Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube Music. Across the services I tried, there was always something: missing content, music unavailable in my country, or playback trouble. Amazon Music's interface was absolutely horrid; I found it unusable. Apple Music would stutter on my Android phones often enough to become deeply annoying.
Eventually, I quit streaming services for my primary listening. Paying for convenience had become an oddly demanding hobby.
I installed gonic on my Mac Mini M4, specifically for its folder view. Apparently, wanting to browse music in the folders I put it in is now a specialised requirement.
Even finding a client was frustrating. The often recommended Symfonium had overlapping interface elements on my new Oppo Reno 16 Android phone, making it barely usable.
We even opened a pull request to add ALAC playback support to Yuzic on Android. I wanted to listen to music; now I'm contributing to a playback engine.
Have I jumped into another deep rabbit hole? I hope not!
So I'm streaming my own files locally again. Like an animal. Maintaining a collection, running a server, taking responsibility for playback. The chores my subscriptions were supposed to eliminate.
There's something quietly absurd about all this: after trying services offering millions of songs, I'm back to keeping the ones I actually want to hear.
Projects worth checking out: