Technology

I actually hate Spotify as a company and find their app/service to be frustrating to use, thanks to them almost constantly dicking around with things.

But... I still use them. Why? Because unfortunately with my needs and preferences, it's the only music streaming app on Android that doesn't have a completely shitty experience when either using it with AndroidAuto, or when casting music to my home stereo receiver. Their app offers the best experience and features against all the other apps I've tried (and I've tried them all).

Tidal's AndroidAuto experience is so minimal it's not funny. No "like" button, no "add to library" button, no "dislike" button, so that killed them for me.

Apple Music on Android is quite buggy when trying to cast to my home stereo. And their AndroidAuto experience is also buggy and lacking too many features I want.

Deezer is pretty much the same as Apple Music from my experiences.

Amazon Music is just "Bleh!" overall.

Qobuz was really lacking in features I want the last time I tried it.

YouTube Music drives me nuts with the way it integrates with regular YouTube.

So I'm stuck with Spotify. And I don't like it. But it's the least problematic for me when compared to the alternatives.

If I used an iPhone (but I prefer Android), I'd switch to Apple Music in a heartbeat because on iOS, Apple Music actually works quite well.

My one hope, at the moment, is the forthcoming music streaming service from Tiktok. I have no idea how good/bad it will be, but I'm eager to try it when it hits the US, just because I'm praying it will finally enable me to kick Spotify to the curb.

/rant