Visits to music piracy websites went up more than 13 percent last year, a new report says. The majority of those visits were to sites that allow users to download the audio from YouTube URLs.

  • Thanks4Nothing@lemm.ee
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    10 months ago

    I know this does not make me look good - but I am a YouTube Premium subscriber. I had Spotify, but they jacked up their family plan rate, and it was only a few bucks cheaper than Premium, then I got the ad-free (without adblockers). I mostly did it to help my kids avoid the toxic ads that are littered into the kid content. The main reason I stick with some of this stuff is for the discovery. Pandora was great, Spotify is ok.

    Regardless - the smart playlists, and AI stuff on YouTube music is AWFUL. I cannot put into words how bad it is. Spotify got it right about 1/4-1/2 of the time. YouTube, maybe 1/100. Constantly recommending a country, which I cannot stand. When it isn’t doing country, it recommends hard rock/metal which I also do not listen to. I feel like I need a new way to find music, then I could sever ties with all these trashy subscriptions.

    • Thanks4Nothing@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      I have started buying vinyl with the digital downloads when I find a great album. I feel better doing it this way. Most of my music is not super big name artists.

    • iAmTheTot@kbin.social
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      10 months ago

      Not been my experience. Yt music playlists are really good for me and I’ve discovered a lot of new music through it.

      • Thanks4Nothing@lemm.ee
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        10 months ago

        That surprises me, but I suppose it had to work for some listeners or they wouldn’t have gotten it past testing. I have even tried clearing my listen history and starting over - still comes up with country and (going to clarify) ‘metal’ . I like rock and alternative and some forms of pop, as well as a bit of hip hop. cannot fathom why it suggests what it does.

          • Thanks4Nothing@lemm.ee
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            10 months ago

            Every time. I am not sure it actually changes anything. I have submitted feedback and bug reports to YTM as well. Just generic replies.

            • IronKrill@lemmy.ca
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              10 months ago

              I feel you. Feels like the algorithm just does whatever now, on main YouTube and Shorts it is awful as well, constantly showing me the same 5 shorts and recommending me channels I have asked to “not recommend” multiple times. No amount of disliking and clicking “Not Interested” seems to help, at least not for longer than a day.

            • iAmTheTot@kbin.social
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              10 months ago

              I dunno, sorry to hear about your experience. I’ve never had a thumb downed song come back up, not ever. And it absolutely affects what kinds of things come up in my radios.

          • beefsquatch@programming.dev
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            10 months ago

            I never thumbs up or down and I find the recommended albums and “Mixed for your” playlists are pretty accurate. I hate that my grandfathered price went up last December tho

    • Euphoma@lemmy.ml
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      10 months ago

      I just listen to playlists that people make or youtube videos of song genres or artists that I like.

    • NoneYa@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      I don’t pay for anything YouTube-related but not at all surprised they recommend shit that is irrelevant.

      I’m the opposite as you and enjoy metal/rock as well as rap/hip hop. But I am constantly being shown “recommendations” for pop and anything I’ve literally never listened to. Also tons of live performances I just don’t care about.

      And what’s funny is there is a way to tell YouTube that you don’t want to see certain videos of non-music stuff, like if I don’t want to see anything from LTT when it’s recommended. But for music? Lol, nope. No such option. It’s so stupid…

    • downhomechunk@midwest.social
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      10 months ago

      Soulseek if you don’t mind data hoarding.

      I have yt premium for the same reason. Toddlers have little patience for ads on their Kindle fire, and they get upset when they click one to buy a luxury watch and can’t figure out how to get back to cocomelon.

      I actually like the service and feel it’s fairly priced. So I don’t mind paying for it. I stream yt music all day at work.

    • AVeryCleverName@lemmy.one
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      10 months ago

      I still havent found anything can match the experience of finding music from online discussions or list hopping on RYM.

      • datavoid@lemmy.ml
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        10 months ago

        I get good value out of it…

        …That being said, I curate my own feed heavily, and still have to use a ton of add-ons to keep from going insane - fuck your shorts YouTube.

        It is admittedly terrible.