Spotify vs Tidal - worth switching?

On average, TIDAL pays out around $0.013 per stream. link
Spotify pays artists between $0.003 - $0.005 per stream on average. link

I chose Tidal for that. They pay artists significantly more than Spotify does. Spotify also platforms Joe Rogan. F#%& that

I can't speak much about the money making stuff, but I've read that most music artists make the majority of their income through touring and ticket sales for their live performances at venues, music festivals as well as attending other private events etc - and this goes back to even pre-Spotify days. So Spotify not paying artists well doesn't really make a big difference. In fact, I'd argue that Spotify actually brings artists publicity, much like how mp3 sharing did back in the day, or the radio for that matter. I've discovered many artists via radio back in the day, much like how I discover them today via Spotify's recommendations, and personally, I don't see the issue.

Anyways, as a former audiophile, I've decided to choose convenience over perceived audio quality, so I use Spotify. Mind you, it's not like I don't perceive any difference at all, but the point is, for my day-to-day listening, it makes little difference - especially when most of my listening is in generally noisy environments like at work or during my commute. Also, Spotify streams at 320kbps Ogg Vorbis (on a good connection) - you'd need to have really good ears and gear to actually hear a difference between that and an uncompressed stream. Even then, it's not like it makes a difference if you're say just listening to pop and rock music or something.

It's not like I've completely given up on lossless audio - I do use my audiophile gear when I'm in the mood and want to listen to certain tracks like say some of Pink Floyd atmospheric stuff like in A Momentary Lapse of Reason, or say John Williams, or classical music like Tchaikovsky or Vivaldi, but these are just a small fraction of my listening experience.

So if you are blessed with the ears and gear to actually make out the difference between 320kbps ogg vs FLAC/DSD, AND you listen to the kind of music where it really matters AND you care enough about that difference that it affects your enjoyment - then sure, go for Tidal. Otherwise, there's no point.

After a few years on Spotify, I switched to Tidal.

Issues I had with Spotify are:

1. You can't block a song, an artist or a band. Ridiculous really. For example, I dislike Kanye West and never want to hear his music, and blocking him on Tidal was easy.
2. The Spotify shuffle algorithm is beyond terrible. If you have a 250 song playlist, you'll hear the same popular 50 songs and never the obscure ones. Sometimes even back-to-back. It's frustrating and they won't fix it. It seems to be their algorithm is designed to promote some artists or bands more than others.
3. Spotify have promised higher quality audio for years and still haven't brought it out. With good headphones or speakers I can hear the difference that Tidal has.

I miss how well Spotify integrated with Google Home though.

There is one feature that is missing on all other music streaming apps that makes them useless to me: Spotify Connect

I remote desktop into another computer for work a lot, so I need a solution for listening to my music on my main computer, while controlling it from another device.

I tried Tidal 2 years ago and it was a solid experience, even had better coverage of artists available than spotify when i looked. Tools help with setting over your playlists and such.

The reason I haven’t gone over to Tidal, is that their shuffle is broken still to this day. If you have a playlist of let’s say 1000 songs, the app will only load the first 500 entries or so until you start scrolling down. Shuffle happens on your end, not on theirs, and since it doesn’t load the songs until you scroll down, shuffling will only take those first 500 into account. It’s absolutely ridiculous that this isn’t being fixed, it support knew about it 1 years ago and still nothing’s changed. That’s unacceptable for such basic behaviour imo.

I tried Tidal. The interface is decent enough. Audio quality is obviously better if you take advantage of hifi.

The reason I didn't stick with it is that I do want the recommendations, and tidal was terrible there. So if you don't care about that, go for it.

I tried Tidal cause I like the idea of paying artists more per stream. However I simply didn't like the UI (especially the lack of album covers visible when list-viewing playlists) and recommendations.

Ended up switching to Apple Music which, even on Android, I prefer.

Has lossless, supports uploading your own files to the cloud, my fav Library system, and pays artists more per stream than Spotify. No podcasts too 👍 Windows app is also getting pretty good (still behind Spot tho)

Tidal for its seamless Plex integration.

I have Spotify, Tidal and YouTube Music. In my opinion Spotify’s apps and UI are way better. Also the recommendations are much better.

Desktop Tidal feels clunky and YT Music doesn’t have a desktop client at all.

All three mobile apps are just fine.

Many more people use Spotify so you’re probably more likely to find good playlist links for Spotify.

YouTube Music is included with YouTube Premium and Tidal has higher quality audio if you need that.

If you don’t care so much about the UI, recommendation engines etc, you can use any of them really. They have similar libraries and in the end they do the same thing - play music.

I switched from Yt Music to Tidal because of audio quality and it's audible. But the difference between Spotify highest quality and Tidal is truly minimal. I did the tests and I couldn't hear it. I kinda prefer the UI and generally like supporting market alternatives if they're good and if they pay artists better, then that's even better. I don't listen to podcasts either, so those are my personal reasons for choosing Tidal over Spotify.

I have never really used Spotify, but my partner insists that the recommendations on Tidal are actually better. I also think the recommendations are great, but work best for genres that Tidal is strong at. Of the genres I listen to, I've had really good experiences with the genres hip hop, rap, lofi, misc. electronic music, western pop, and less good experiences with classical music, soundtracks and more niche genres like J-Pop, African Pop and random trash (on Spotify, our we used to like to prank our friends by adding stuff like gangster's paradise kids bop version or "female orgasm sounds" to their playlists. I haven't really found prank-worthy stuff on Tidal yet).

So it's really a personal decision and tbh, I think Spotify is the better choice for most people.

Switched to Tidal a couple of years ago. I like the app better and the bump in audio quality is nice with good headphones or on my hifi system. If you're the kind of person who walk around with whatever the latest chinesium special bluetooth buds promoted by influencers are then it might not be for you.

They've pretty much copied all the good features on Spotify (like my mix) but left out all the useless bloat and "promotions".

I use Tidal. I have no issues with the app or anything it recommends to me. In fact, it does a really great job at mentioning new music from bands that I haven't heard from in a while. Econoline Crush and Filter are 2 that had a recent release that even Apple Music didn't tell me about, even though I have both bands music in my library with Apple.

I've tried to like Spotify, but I just couldn't get into it. There was just a feeling that it's not a music first app, but a user data collection app that happens to provide music. I don't get that feeling with Tidal.

If I had to complain about Tidal for something, it would be the Live feature. I have the toggle off for showing live sessions, but I'd love to just turn it completely off and remove all traces of that feature. No one cares what I'm listening to, and I have no intention of being "social" in my music app.

Spotify pays Joe Rogan a huge salary. I won't help support it.

iBroadcast. Upload music you have purchased, access it from everywhere. No ads. Not great for discovering new music but it's an underrated service.

I use innertune from fdroid, I'm quite happy with it

I use YouTube music because I watch a lot of YouTube and because it pays roughly 0$.08 per stream, which is higher than Spotify. I know tidal pays it's artists more, but I really like the way YouTube music is set up, and I love that I can find music videos and lyrics super easily in the app

I use YouTube Music. For 18€/month, I get unlimited access to both YouTube Premium and YouTube Music for the whole family (5 accounts). The music selection is better than Spotify, as anything tagged as "music video" on YouTube you can play in YT Music. I can't tell the difference in sound quality between Spotify and YT Music, but I use Bluetooth headphones anyway...

I turned off the streaming services and went back to mp3s. Jellyfin has Finamp and there’s also VLC and others I’m sure.

I honestly think Spotify is better because mote people use it. Its been a while for me but there's just way more music and the app is nicer. There have veen a dew times where Ive been really tempted to go back but I end up just forgetting lol. I pay for Tidal bc ethics and YouTube Premium and I get pretty much all my music needs met.

I was on Tidal forever ago. To answer the most important question, no the higher quality audio files aren't total snake oil. Certain offerings definitely sound better. Amazon Music generally offers higher sound quality though. Tidal also do pay artists better, but Napster is the best about payment if I'm not mistaken (ironic as fuck).

As for the app though... It's been a few years, but this is where everything that offers sound quality goes to shit. The desktop player was ass and the website was ass. It didn't know how to handle Last.fm and other things I'd consider basics for Audiophiles. Amazon Music's UI was even worse, I cancelled it after 2 days.

Spotify has the best value proposition. Hulu+Spotify for 10 bucks is good. I also question how long Tidal will be able to continue existing.

I switched to Tidal after Spotify suddenly killed the API libspotify was using.

It takes a while for Tidal to "learn" what kind of music I like. I think Spotify got it sooner. Now the recommendations are pretty good.

I hate that they copied the weird queue management from Spotify. What can't I just tell the player to play another album after the one that is currently playing finishes? It surprises me it is not a more common compliant.

Dunno switched to Apple Music after google killed Play Music.

I found that spotify improved when using the desktop Bluetooth to speaker (no ads). Switched to spotube on my mobile.

Spotify on spotube or swipify client

I love my Tidal, me and my partner both use it. I generally really like the track radio and the mixes it serves up for me.

Permanently Deleted

Revanced YT music.

After a few years on Spotify, I switched to Tidal.

Issues I had with Spotify are:

1. You can't block a song, an artist or a band. Ridiculous really. For example, I dislike Kanye West and never want to hear his music, and blocking him on Tidal was easy.
2. The Spotify shuffle algorithm is beyond terrible. If you have a 250 song playlist, you'll hear the same popular 50 songs and never the obscure ones. Sometimes even back-to-back. It's frustrating and they won't fix it. It seems to be their algorithm is designed to promote some artists or bands more than others.
3. Spotify have promised higher quality audio for years and still haven't brought it out. With good headphones or speakers I can hear the difference that Tidal has.

I miss how well Spotify integrated with Google Home though.

I used both Spotify and Tidal, I have upper mid range headphones and I couldn't tell the difference in quality.

I'm now using YouTube Music because it costs the same as Spotify (around $4 in my country) but I also get YT Premium, so no YT ads on mobile either. On desktop I'm using an ad blocker, so by having premium I can support the creators that I watch without wasting my time with ads.