Rant: Are There Too Many Music Streaming Services?

There's no such thing as "the perfect music streaming service."

Y’all already know I loathe music streaming services. On one hand, most of them deliver more music than you could ever listen to. Sure the libraries differ from service to service but most of them now claim over 100 million tracks.

So how do they differentiate? In features, of course. And that’s where things tend to fall apart. Some offer everything but the kitchen sink, but do it poorly. At the same time, others omit features in order to make their current feature set super reliable.

But overall, they’re all effectively borrowing features from one another with the odd feature here and there. In this story, I wanted to walk through what I think are the unique features of some services and maybe why some of them shouldn’t actually exist.

Spotify

Of course, the big one people like to point out is Spotify Connect. Which? Completely fair. Spotify Connect is great and I don’t blame anyone for staying with Spotify for that reason.

But I actually think the biggest bonus of Spotify is its size, dominance, and scale. Spotify can afford to be missing features because they have the catalog to back it up. You’ll find very little that’s not on Spotify that’s available on other services (of course, omitting platform specific tracks and albums).

Spotify can be half a decade late to lossless audio and not offer Spatial Audio/Dolby Atmos and most of its users don’t care. Spotify can morph its music streaming app into a podcast player and add audiobooks and users don’t care.

Spotify Connect, combined with its social features is what makes people stay with the platform. Its playlist algorithm is pretty decent, though some people swear by it. Personally, I don’t really care for it. The Spotify app is quick and it’s effectively available anywhere you can play music. For the most part, if it can make a sound, it can play Spotify.

I think Spotify’s biggest issue is that it has diverted itself away from music. The Spotify app combines podcasts and audiobooks all into one. If that’s something you’re looking for, great. I’m not. It’s ultimately why I don’t really want to use the service anymore. There’s too much going on. I wish there was a way to disable podcasts and audiobooks. Or at the very least, Spotify should release a separate app for people who just want music.

And that last one hurts the most when you consider the recent price hikes from Spotify. It seems as though the company will do anything but improve the core sound quality, which is now being lapped by literally everyone else. I’m not talking codecs or bitrate. Spotify subjectively sounds worse than services such as YouTube Music or Apple Music (set to High Quality).

Apple Music

I don’t want to beat an already dead horse. But the obvious thing is if you’re in the Apple ecosystem, Apple Music is probably your best choice. But that’s not the only reason to pick Apple Music.

I’d argue Apple Music has its quirks but is overall the most well-rounded service out there. But those quirks I mentioned? If those bother you at all, it will be the bane of your existence and will be dealbreakers.

Apple Music brought lossless audio and Dolby Atmos/Spatial Audio to the mainstream. It’s also ad-free (but there’s no free tier) and has best-in-class beat-by-beat lyrics and an unmatched catalog of animated artwork. Similar to Spotify, Apple Music’s catalog is large and vast. It practically has anything you’d ever want to listen to.

For anything that isn’t in the Apple Music catalog? You’re welcome to upload your own local files. Apple will take those files and try and match them with its own catalog. If not, you get a "high quality" 256 kbps copy of it. And unlike Spotify, these local files sync to the cloud and are available on any device that runs the Apple Music app.

The service’s playlists are relatively good, and its radio stations are very good in my opinion. I’ve discovered a lot through Apple Music’s Discovery Radio. Of course, you can’t forget music videos and Apple’s generally pretty solid library management system.

If you’re a serious music listener, Apple Music and Spotify are generally the only two guaranteed services to get pre-save/add. This applies both when an artist posts a link and when you go searching for an upcoming release. Most other services just post singles until the album’s official release date.

I think the main problem with Apple Music is its platform availability and the quality of its apps on desktop. Unlike Spotify, Apple Music isn’t available quite everywhere. Just on the big platforms. If you’re a non-Apple device user, you can find Apple Music on Windows, Android, PS5, and a few smart speakers. But that’s about it. Otherwise, you’re stuck using a pretty sub-par web experience. I have a whole story on my adventures of Apple Music you can find here. It’s worth a read if you’ve only ever used Apple Music as your music platform.

YouTube Music

Of all the services, I actually think YouTube Music is the most unique. It’s the only music service that builds in a community-driven music service of sorts. In addition to the typical library you can find on most other services, YouTube Music ties in... well... YouTube. Any remixes or unofficial edits are available at your fingertips.

Admittedly, I haven’t used YouTube Music for any expanded amount of time. But everyone I know who uses the service is generally very happy with almost no downsides. The only real party pooper I’ve heard was when the service was originally Google Play Music and the transition into the YouTube branding was quite frustrating.

And that’s it, I think. Its biggest party trick is being tied to the YouTube branding. Although, that’s not a bad thing. That opens up the door for a significantly larger music library if you don’t want to go through the guesswork of having to rip YouTube videos, convert them to audio, and add them to your library on practically any other service. With YouTube Music, it’s right there.

Deezer

Deezer is a weird one. I know very few people who have it. In my personal opinion, I think Deezer is lost. It has no idea who it’s marketing to. And that’s very apparent when you stop and think, "Who do I know that uses Deezer?"

The service is still offering the very dated 360 Reality Audio platform (practically any modern service offers Dolby Atmos or both). Very few devices can properly decode 360 Reality Audio. It’s time to move on and start incorporating Dolby Atmos at this point.

Deezer offers CD quality lossless but nothing beyond. While that’s not necessarily a bad thing, it means it won’t attract a lot of the audiophile crowd (yours truly included), to the platform. Those who arguably actually care about sound quality to that degree.

Similar to Apple Music, Deezer lets you upload local files to your library. However, you have to convert them all to the MP3 format. Apple’s implementation is a bit limited as well (needs to be converted to ALAC or AIFF for lossless), but it’s insane that Deezer forces you to use MP3 and no other format.

I think the only reason you’d use Deezer is if it was cheaper than most other services for you. I just don’t see the appeal for Deezer. And I ran the service for a few months straight in the past.

Amazon Music

In my head, Amazon Music almost falls in the same boat as Deezer. Most people I know who have Amazon Music have it because of their Amazon Prime membership.

I tried Amazon Music not too long ago thanks to Amazon’s constant free trial promos and I’m shocked at how poor the app experience still continues to be.

It’s one of those things where I suppose if you don’t spend a whole lot of time in the app and you rely on Alexa to control the service, it’s fine. But I’m not too keen on relying on a voice assistant for my music streaming service.

Plus, Amazon Music is pretty locked down when it comes to trying to import or export your playlists and library. Even Apple Music is better here and allows for library portability. Services such as Soundiiz have a hard time working with Amazon Music. And to take it a step further, Amazon Music doesn’t really integrate with anyone else either. It really is a closed ecosystem.

That said, Amazon Music’s catalog is large thanks to the decades the company has with its Amazon digital music store. Amazon Music catalog is on Spotify/Apple Music’s level. You’ll be hard pressed to not find what you’re looking for here.

The one saving grace that used to make Amazon Music pretty decent is its digital music locker, aka a way to store your local files and integrate them with your library. That’s been gone for about five years now.

So unless you’re in the Amazon ecosystem, I think it’s safe to say you should skip it and use something else.

Tidal

Y’all already know Tidal is my choice for music streaming, so I’ll try my best to stay level headed here.

Tidal’s biggest upside is that it tries to be Spotify. Tidal Connect is solid, but not as good as Spotify Connect. Tidal supports animated artwork, lyrics, and music videos. The experience for those is decent and I’d love for Tidal to really focus on making its existing feature set across the board great.

Its app situation isn’t great. Its core apps are pretty great (phones, tablets, desktop computers), but otherwise, the rest seem to effectively be abandoned. The concept for Tidal’s TV app is neat — music videos first, but oftentimes I just want to play my music library and Tidal makes it hard to do so on TV.

I think Tidal’s saving grace is its third-party integrations. Yes, it works with Roon. Which, for me means I almost never actually launch Tidal’s first-party app (for better or for worse). Tidal’s integration with Plex and Plexamp is pretty solid too if you’re in that ecosystem.

And as I mentioned before, Tidal Connect isn’t as good as Spotify. But that’s in the sense of control across devices. Tidal Connect works with most music streamers, connected-DACs, and receivers. It still has some work to do in terms of more modern "smart" devices such as speakers, TVs, watches, etc. But Tidal’s core focus is still on the audiophile, and I think that’s great.

It’s biggest pitfall? The music catalog. It’s actually not too terrible, but it’s notably smaller than Spotify/Apple Music/Amazon Music/YouTube Music. It’s getting better by the day, but there are still at least a few hundred tracks I’ve had to import into my Roon local library due to its unavailability on Tidal.

That being said, unless you care for third-party integrations or audiophile-specific features, Tidal is probably a skip. You’re better off using Spotify, Apple Music, or YouTube Music.

Qobuz

The only reason I mention Qobuz here is because it’s the de-facto audiophile’s choice for music streamers nowadays. It’s typically seen as an alternative to Tidal. But in my personal opinion, unless you’re into jazz or classical music, it’s hard to recommend.

I used Qobuz in conjunction with Roon and Tidal up until recently. I love the sound quality of Qobuz. I love the general layout of Qobuz, but the actual experience of using the Qobuz app is pretty terrible. The apps are often buggy and are missing key features for a modern music application.

It ties in and integrates with Roon. But I don’t think Qobuz is worth it for the vast majority of people. Of all the music streaming services mentioned, Qobuz has the smallest catalog by far. Oftentimes, full albums by mainstream artists are just missing on Qobuz. And in my experience, there’s usually no rhyme or reason to it. Usually, Qobuz has most albums available but has a gap from an artist or band during a certain date range. And that date range isn’t consistent across other bands or artists.

It’s just a mess over there. You might want to run a trial just to hear its better sound quality. But I’d wager most people probably won’t stick around due to its lackluster apps (which currently are only phones, tablets, and computers but nothing else). Qobuz Connect is coming, but not here yet.

As much as I have been rooting for Qobuz for the last few years, I think they’re way too far behind now both in-app features and library size.

The Rest (Conclusion)

And then there’s the rest. I’m only one person, but in my opinion, the rest that aren’t named aren’t worth looking at, at all. There’s nothing that sets them apart from the ones I’ve mentioned in this piece.

I think there’s a lot more to do to innovate in the music streaming space. Apps need to continue to get better and it’s very obvious that in my eyes, there’s not one "perfect" music platform out there. They all have their faults and quirks—whether that’s in features or library size.

Even for myself, I can’t say for sure that I’ll be sticking to my current setup for the next five or even 10 years. The landscape is constantly changing and hopefully, innovation continues.

For now, my personal choice is Tidal, Roon, and my local library. As painful as it is to say, I’m rooting for either Spotify, Apple, or YouTube to make their experiences better for audiophiles so I can switch to them.

While I hate to admit it, music streaming services are sort of a popularity contest and most artists only really focus on the bigger services with exclusive releases and/or exclusive content for those platforms. Those sometimes trickle down to services such as Tidal, but it’s pretty rare to see.