Is there a Spotify alternative that has no ads?

BruceTwarzen@kbin.social to Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 62 points –

Is there a Spotify alternative that has no ads?

I pay for Spotify for 7 years or so now and i'm so sick of all the ads. After every update there seems to be an: oops, sorry, you have ads now. Podcasts are filled with ads. I was just listening to a podcast where they shoved in 3 ads mid-sentence. How long until musicians put ads in their songs. I'm just so sick of it.

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Podcasts will have ads no matter where you listen to them. That's not Spotify inserting them, it's the podcasts. I pay for a family subscription to Spotify, and I never get ads in between songs, not after updates or anything.

That's not Spotify inserting them, it's the podcasts.

The podcast may elect whether or not to include it, but it's definitely Spotify performing the legwork. That is unless you think it's a coincidence that I (with my Spotify home address set to Iowa) got an ad from the Iowa HHS on a podcast by a British podcaster.

It's called dynamic ad insertion, and it's the podcast hosts choosing to insert ads into their podcasts. I know this because I have a podcast with no ads.

Spotify is giving them that choice. It should say that it won't run ads for premium users - only free ones.

It's not Spotify that's "giving them that choice." It's the podcast distributor. For example, I use Red Circle, and I can choose to insert ads through them. Podcasts have the same ads regardless of the platform they are on. It's not Spotify, it's the podcasts. I don't like ads either...

This is correct. I use AntennaPod and one of the podcasts I listen to started using dynamic insertion along with normal sponsorships.

I dropped that podcast.

How does it give me location specific ads if Spotify isn't inserting the ad for them?

both things are true. The decision to include an ad is made by the podcast producer, but the dynamic ad is facilitated through Spotify's dynamic ad platform. Podcast producers have been including paid sponsorships in podcasts in addition to inserting ads in their podcasts. For the inserted ads, they will work with the podcast platforms to insert dynamic ads if the platform supports it (like spotify) or generic baked-in ads if the platform doesn't support it. Either way, inclusion of these ads is controlled by the producer, not the platform, so paying to remove platform-controlled ads won't remove these ads. If you want your podcast with no ads at all, you may need to see if the producer offers an ad-free version (possibly through a proprietary paid platform like patreon).

Sorry I'm responding to such an old question, but it seemed like there wasn't an answer.

So when you make an http request (which you do every time you download a podcast episode), the request includes your IP address as part of the headers; it's called "remote address," and it's a part of every http request that's made on the internet. In fact, it has to be, as this is how responses are directed back to your device.

Now, this isn't perfect, but there are code libraries that can take that IP and fetch your location from a GeoIP database. It won't get your pin-drop location unless you're connected to Wi-Fi at a place with a known IP, but it can pretty generally figure out what cell tower or broadband ISP you're connected to; that'll usually get within 50 miles or so. Easy enough to get your state if you're in the US, and probably even your city.

So when you request an episode from a podcast using dynamic ad insertion, the server does that lookup, figures out where you're from, and then chooses ads to insert: local ones if there are any, general ones if not. Then it loads up the local ads into the audio file, hopefully into preselected gaps in the audio. (And honestly, most servers actually pre-cache a bunch of these for big cities where there are a lot of subscribers.) Then they send the podcast, with ads inserted, to your phone.

Sometimes this gets weird; if you download a podcast while on vacation, for instance, or over a VPN (I'm almost always connected to a VPN, so I rarely get any local ads), or if you subscribe through a service that precaches your podcasts before your phone downloads them, so it's their IP address that starts this process rather than yours. And if it's really bizarre, you might not get any ads at all; this has happened to me on a few podcasts. They just throw to sponsors and immediately come back. That's kinda nice.

Unless they're talking about ads that the podcasters themselves at to the recording. They're not all inserted by whatever platform you get them from. This is what they're referring to.

@ickplant sometimes they are. American podcast doesn't sometimes have german ads. And if they do, fuck them. That's like paying for netflix but some movies still have ads.

But it's literally the podcast hosts choosing to insert ads. Not Spotify. It would be like blaming Netflix because you didn't like what the characters are wearing on one of the movies.

Some movies do have ads - product placements. Yeah, they suck.

For podcasts, just use another podcast asp, or even the podcasts's website

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Are you sure it's not just the podcasters that put ads on thier pods?

I have had Spotify premium basically seance launch and haven't heard a singel ad from them seance.

But I have never really listened to any pods.

@SgtAStrawberry some of them are. But some doesn't have ads and when i re-listen to them they have german ads that weren't there before. Also i don't really care, if i pay for no ads then i pay for no ads

That I totally understand. I just wanted to make it clear what type of ads we were talking about. I heard some people put them in the same category or even put recommendations in too. And while I understand the logic, about the two types of ads, Spotify, YouTube and similar can't really do much about the ads put in by the creator.

I've been paying for Spotify for about the same length of time and I still haven't heard a single ad placed by Spotify since going Premium. Any ads I've heard in podcasts are like the sponsored segments on a YouTube video; put there by the people making the podcast, not by Spotify and exist in the podcast no matter what source you got it from.

It's weird, I've seen quite a few posts like the OP relatively recently complaining about how Spotify premium suddenly has ads now. Yet I've had a premium subscription for 10 year now (rip my $$$) and have yet to hear a single ad since subbing. Well, unless it's a sponsored segment placed in there by the creator.

Maybe it's because I don't listen to many podcasts? But even when I have, I have literally never heard a Spotify ad. Maybe the specific podcasts I've listened to don't have the "feature" that OP describes.

Maybe it's regional? Maybe it's an error? Maybe OP doesn't recognize ads placed there by the content creator?

Could even be their subscription lapsed and they somehow didn't notice. It has, occasionally, not popped up with the big red banner telling me my payment didn't go through and I only knew something was wrong because I get ads and can't play the exact song I want because I was no longer using Premium.

What ads are you talking about? Music on Premium/Family has no audio ads period. The home screen offers music to listen to, but most are either genres you listen to, or overall popular items. I wouldn’t lump these in with ads for paper towels or fast food etc.

Podcasts are free and ad-supported. You might be able to get ad-free if you go out to each producer and subscribe. I think Wonderly did that maybe?

How long until musicians put ads in their songs

Boy do I have some bad news for you

Can you share the news?

The news is that tons of artists take sponsorship deals to write a brand's name into the lyrics of their songs. It's particularly bad in country music but every genre has offenders

Oof. I'm glad I don't listen to genres where this happens, then. 😅

If you want to listen to podcasts, you should use a podcast app. Not an ad service with podcast functionality.

Podcasts are free (most of them). You can use any podcast app you like. I like poket casts, but you can find about 100 other apps.

Android: Spotube

I second Spotube. I actually do pay for Spotify, but I've considered moving to Spotube entirely. I was really impressed when I tried it.

@LinkOpensChest_wav what does it do exactly. I downloaded it and linked my Spotify account.

@retrolasered

Ok so if you connected your Spotify account, then it should have your saved playlists and so forth in your library. You can stream or even download these tracks, just like with Spotify Premium. You should also be able to create new playlists/save content to your library.

It even has some features that Spotify doesn't have. For example, you can totally block specific artists. So like for me, I fucking hate The Dwarves, and Spotify always recommends them to me. On Spotube, I was able to block them. (I'd have to refresh my memory on how.)

The catch is, it doesn't use actual content from Spotify at all. Instead, it grabs these tracks from YouTube's API. At least, that's how it worked when I used it. If you try to download too much content at once, it will make you confirm that you understand that your ISP or someone might notice and take action, so ... download judiciously, I guess?

I usually have a pretty solid mobile data connection, so I never bothered with downloading.

Wait, why do I need a Spotify account if it grabs everything from Youtube anyway?

You don't need one. Connecting your Spotify account is optional. You should still be able to use Spotube without one.

To import playlists and stuff mostly. Not required afaik.

Why do you hate the Dwarves so much? I think I've only heard a song but a buddy wears a shirt from time to time.

They were violent pricks at their shows. They'd beat the shit out of random people at their shows just to be edgy.

I come from the school of showing unity, support, and mutual aid. Dancing at shows was one thing, but deliberately hurting people is fucked up imo.

Makes sense to me, the fact you went of your way to specify your hate for them made me had to ask.

It always used to surprise me that bands like Nirvana would play with the Dwarves, considering their reputation and actions at shows

Deezer or Apple Music come to my mind. Never witnessed any ads there.

Used both (currently on AM but used Deezer thanks to a free trial).

They both have their exclusives and they might do something in relation to, say, a new album launch, but I've not had any blatant advertising on either of them. Apple's Podcast app on iOS is free, if they have an iPhone.

A lot of podcasters have an ad-free subscription service you can get through their patreon.

It might be worth tracking these down individually.

YouTube music's paid service has no ads, and you also get no ads on regular ol' YouTube under the same sub as well.

Music streaming + no ads on YouTube on any device without doing anything is so nice. If that perk gets dropped I'll probably drop YouTube music completely.

They won't drop the perk, but they will keep raising the price 🫠

Too bad it still sucks years after killing it's better brother, Play Music. Only reason I still pay is for YouTube premium

https://www.xmanagerapp.com/

This is what I use. The only downside is no downloading. Otherwise it's saved me money.

What is this?

Spotify patcher to spoof premium features

What they said. It patches the official Spotify app to give you premium features such as no ads and infinite skips. Only thing it doesn't have is downloads.

InnerTune is great. It uses YT music. You can download musics from there. You can also login with your YT account to access your playlists. I am using it daily.

I have been paying for Spotify for 5 years now and haven't had a single audio ad. The app is full of ads, but I think they all are.

Hppened to me yesterday. Podcast ended and suddenly an add played. Then itnplayed episode from another podcast entirely. Was weird af

That's probably from within the podcast itself.

I'm absolutely 100% certain it was not. Unfortunately I was not near the device so no idea what was happening but I know the podcast and it doesn't have adds

Super weird dude. Imy curiosity is piqued but I know it's gotta be tough to reproduce.

So... update. I was listening to the podcast and got an add. This was done by the guy doing the show but it was not an add within the podcast, it paused the podcast to play the ad and then the podcast resumed. It specifically played a stand-alone ad for some Spotify thing.

This is different to what happrnrd previously but still jarring. Not sure why I pay for add-free experience if I still get adds.

Update 2: it did it again, this time I was ready to watch for it. Ad played once I finished with the latest episode and it went to a rndom recommended podcast episode. The ad played as if part of the podcast, but no idea how that's possible because add was in my nayive language nd podcast was English

This is super weird and would really annoy me.

Would it be ok if I asked what podcast it was?

Podcast is bit of misnomer but search for Reforge Gaming. It's kind of a daily one man show about various gaming topics. It's a youtube livestream that he also uploads to Spotify

Weird. Does that only happen with podcasts? I don't listen to podcasts, only music.

Happened first and only time with a podcast. It is the only one I listen to/watch on spotify.

Either use Newpipe or patch YouTube music with Revanced

For music I can only recommend spotube. It offers almost all features Spotify offers(except that Spotify que is better) and you can of course download music and don't have ads.

@BruceTwarzen I think Amazon Music offers ad-free versions of certain podcasts that partner with them if you have an Amazon Music subscription. Since the ads are usually inserted into the audio track by the podcast's creators themselves, the distribution platforms don't have control over where they are placed.