Disclaimer: here by mp3 I am referring to any playable music file, with any extension.

For most people Spotify is great, or at least it is better than managing your own mp3s like in the old days. But there are few things that I absolutely hate, which made me switch to MP3.

Things that pisses me off about Spotify:

• Podcasts - I know a lot of people who listens to podcast through Spotify, but I hate it. I follow podcasts through their RSS feed and listen to them on Antenapod. I wish there were an option to remove podcasts from my Spotify home screen completely, but currently there isn’t any.

• Privacy issues - Spotify has lots and lots of privacy issues. Their Android app has 8 trackers as of 14 sep 2022. Also it’s pretty clear that they track and use all your listening habits.

• Removal of certain artists - It is happening to Spotify for so long, I didn’t care back then because all the artists I like were there on Spotify. But then suddenly out of nowhere almost all songs of Adeline Hill were vanished. I was pissed - that was the last straw.

Looking at alternatives:

I needed something that doesn’t have these problems, without losing much convenience. Apple music is a close one, but it has its own set of problems. Android app is very buggy (I spent 30 mins trying to get my account logged in) and feels sluggish all the time. If I’m going to pay for a product I don’t wanna feel like second class citizen. YouTube music is another good option, but I’d love to stay away from Google. Last option is using MP3, I went with that.

Benifits of using mp3:

• You own the damn song - I mean there’s no worries if Spotify is going to remove that song, no worries if Spotify servers are down or if you lose access to their service somehow. You can keep it locally and play whenever you wish.

• Works with any shitty app - You can use any app you like, open-source/closed-source, minimal/feature-rich etc. There’s hundreds of MP3 player apps are out there on every platform. If you get bored of one, you can easily switch back to another app.

• Works offline - And it’s completely free! All streaming apps requires you to pay a monthly fee to download songs for offline listening. You may asay ‘but I want to support the artists’, buy their merch or go to their concert, that’s better way to support them.

• Using higher quality of audio files - if you go this route, you have the option to choose any quality of audio you want. For example you can use FLAC for better sound quality.

Disadvantages of mp3:

• Hard to organize: It is probably single biggest problem of using mp3 files. It takes way too much work. If you’re like me and your library grows as time goes on, the work to organize would quickly become tedious. If you use multiple devices (everybody uses multiple devices nowadays) you’ll have to keep your library on sync, which requires work.
• No way to discover new music: It’s pretty obvious. You cannot discover new music if you just listen to your own library. It may be okay for you, but not going to work for me. I like to find new music (even if that means going through hundred shit music). You can use last.fm but it has it’s own issues.
• Storage Problem: Most smartphones does not come with any SD Card slot nowadays. So whatever storage you get while buying a new phone stays the same and there is no way to expand it. It can be a problem. If your music library is huge. Or if you are listening to FLAC music you would easily run out of storage.

Although there are some advantages of using mp3, disadvantages definitely outweigh them. Convinience is a major part which makes me want to stream instead of using these mp3s. In future when I get my own Raspberry Pi ( hopefully the future is near ) I’d like to host my own Jellyfin server there for music. It would be my primary way of listening to music. And when I would feel like finding new music I would use Spotify as usual. Other that music discovery there is few other things that keeps me inside spotify. Those are:

• Ability to listen music with friends.
• Being able to manage my playlists from all my devices. (I do not know how to do it while using mp3s)
• Bening able to listen to whole discography of an artist with great convinience. ( If I find an Artist I like I would just go to their spotify page and choose shuffle all. )
• Sharing playlists with others.
• Playlist/Song radio

In conclusion, spotify is still better for me to listen to music than to use mp3. I’m always trying to find new music and Spotify helps with that a lot. Maybe in future when I grow old and start to think all new music are trash I would definitely move to mp3s.