I pay for Youtube premium as a carry-over from Google Music (back when it was called Youtube Red). I let it run because I enjoy the screen off feature when I'm driving. On my desktop uBlock Origin still blocks 340 scripts/trackers even when logged into Premium. They not only want to eye-rape us with ads, but they want to track the fuck out of us across the web.

An then there are those that swing days and nights who are stuck in perpetual limbo. My sleep schedule sucks.

I store everything on an openmediavault nas and serve up using Plex, Navidrome, Audiobookshelf, and Calibre, all running in Docker containers.

1.8Tb stored on an 8Tb NAS drive. Plenty of room for more music hoarding.

In my case, a self hosted streaming server works wonders. Plex with Pleaxamp, Jellyfin, Navidrome, Airsonic, any of them will stream to your phone while out and about.

I really hope this is satire. If not, you're way off the mark. Lossy files do not intrinsically suffer any kind of bit rot. Bits are bits, and your storage interface doesn't have any clue what those bits mean. I have MP3s from the late 90s that have been stored on the cheapest CD-Rs you can imagine, that still play perfect.

Um, .wav is a lossless format. It's just raw PCM with no compression. An upscaled FLAC from a lossy source is not lossless, even though it's stored in a lossless compatible format (FLAC). A properly encoded and compressed MP3 file will sound very close to the lossless source, but when procuring those lossy files from third parties, you rely on whoever compressed them doing it properly. I prefer to store my music repository in a lossless format, and stream/sync in lossy.

I mainly get my purchased music from Qobuz and Bandcamp. If it's older, don't dismiss compact discs, used or new. A lot of times you can get the CD cheaper than the digital download, then just rip it to any format you want.

Plex server streaming to Plexamp here. Currently handling around 50k tracks all stored on my NAS no problem. Soundiiz supports Plex, so converting Spotify playlists over to Plex is pretty straight forward, provided you have the songs.

• Plex pulls down it's own metadata, so if you're a tagging freak like me, you'll have to check the "Prefer local metadata" on your Plex server.
• Smart playlists are a little cumbersome. They're actually saved filtered searches. Not intuitive at all.
• No HiRes - if that's your thing. (on iOS, not sure about Android)
• Plexamp has a separate EQ for each bluetooth device on iOS, but it can't differentiate between wired headphones using an adapter.
• It does save music or playlists to the device for offline playback, but they're captured within Plexamp. You can't play those offline tracks in any other app (might be possible in Andorid, but the filenames will be random and idk about metadata). I have not run into an offline download limit, like in the old days.

why wouldn’t you want all your audio entertainment in one place?

Because Spotify is known to track and sell your listening habits. It's fine (for me) that they track that I listen to AC/DC right before Ghostly Kisses. Music is music. A person's podcasts can get a lot more personal. Politically, emotionally, and religiously personal. I don't like to be profiled.

I would have fixed the damn API to push ads out to third party apps, with ad revenue sharing. Then implemented a per user API price to enable browsing ad free.

The very same thing happened to me. It's amazing to me how fast Lemmy.world has grown in the few weeks I've been here!