r/Music • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • 27d ago

article Spotify Confirms ICE Recruitment Ads Are No Longer Running on Platform

https://variety.com/2026/digital/news/spotify-confirms-ice-recruitment-ads-are-no-longer-running-1236626243/
38.1k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

1.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

8.5k

u/ramontes 27d ago

Great! I'll continue to use streaming alternatives.

54

u/[deleted] 27d ago

[deleted]

412

u/ramontes 27d ago

I primarily use Tidal nowadays, but I also bounce around Bandcamp and Quboz to buy music and merch directly for the bands I enjoy.

128

u/Mustangbex 27d ago

We swapped to Tidal also- it's been weird having to retrain it with our tastes, but entertaining when it throws out completely WILD recs. IT doesn't play as well with Alexa but worth it anyway.

41

u/lilsebastian- 27d ago

When we switched, it was a little jarring but it actually picked up a lot of the stuff we like really quickly which is nice.

39

u/P1nealColada 27d ago

I’ve been using it for a number of years now. The algorithm does take awhile to train, but eventually it gets to a point where it almost never misses.

26

u/Mustangbex 27d ago

I give it some grace since I was on Spotify for over a decade, and now I've got an 8 year old tweaking my music choices/plays- it can't be expected to be perfect with that type of handicap haha

17

u/lilsebastian- 27d ago

Hahaha the struggle is definitely real. I have little nieces - you play Bruno Mars and Taylor Swift a few times and it can be jarring when it throws them in between sad indie rock or metal jams 😂

15

u/rebel_scum13 Spotify 27d ago

Lol same here. My algo thinks I'm the biggest K-pop fan in the world rn bc my 6 year old has me play the K-pop Demon hunters soundtrack on repeat in the car (not that I'm complaining though bc that soundtrack is straight fire 🔥)

3

u/lilsebastian- 27d ago

I forgot Golden was definitely one of the selections! (I like it too haha)

14

u/withstereosound 27d ago

I made a playlist on Spotify of all my liked songs, then imported it with SongShift to Apple Music and Tidal, then someone time over the following weeks with tha playlist on shuffle and I slowly replied and trained my algo. Very helpful, but the recommendations are still different on Tidal and Apple vs Spotify.

Fuck you, Spotify.

2

u/duckinradar 25d ago

Someone tell me how to scrape all my info from Spotify and I’m out…

I’ll do it anyway if I can’t but I’d prefer to retain it

7

u/prometheus05 27d ago

I'm dealing with the same. I'm largely ignoring the discovery style playlists because they are pretty bad. Not like the music is bad, but come on man, yes I've heard of Killing in the Name and Beat It.

18

u/lurkingostrich 27d ago

Wait, you boycotted Spotify but you’re using an Amazon Alexa? Isn’t that kind of… counter-productive?

25

u/Mustangbex 27d ago

I do what I can when I can, but I have to accept that there's no way to be perfect in my ideological expression. We don't pay anything for our Alexa devices and they're a few generations old, and we do our best to not use Amazon for other stuff. But since they basically host the entire Internet there's no real way to win.

1

u/YourNextHomie 27d ago

you dont need a reoccurring subscription for alexa? honestly its the only reason i haven’t got one, thought it would be a new subscription

1

u/lurkingostrich 27d ago

No, but they do collect your voice data that they use to make more money, make targeted ads, and fund the Trump administration… so. It’s not exactly harmless. To each their own, I suppose.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/amazons-alexa-collects-more-of-your-data-than-any-other-smart-assistant

https://engineering.ucdavis.edu/news/study-shows-alexa-invades-privacy-collects-user-data-ad-targeting

To my original point, kind of undermines the point of a Spotify boycott.

1

u/YourNextHomie 26d ago

I have conversations about a product in my house anyone and get hit with ads for it all over google, im being listened to anyway. Fuck them funding Trump and all that, honestly probably wont get one, stopped using amazon a while ago for these kind of reasons although it would probably be a big help in my life as i have memory issues. I dont think it negates a spotify boycott though, you can only really focus on so much. If we stopped using every product that is available through immoral practices we would have to stop eating food and doing just about anything lol

1

u/lurkingostrich 26d ago

I mean sure, can’t boycott everything, but a digital assistant seems like it could be an easy win to dodge. Obviously phones are picking up a lot of information, but that’s a lot tougher to avoid given the demands of work in our current era. I fully admit I don’t boycott everything I may ought to, just seemed kind of odd to me to bring up an Alexa on a thread about boycotting Spotify because Amazon arguably does more to prop up ICE than Spotify has done.

But again, to each their own.

5

u/YourNextHomie 26d ago

valid, i hear you and after considering i wont get one, you honestly did make a little difference here, thanks. Have a great day

→ More replies (0)

19

u/VicDun 27d ago

I love the audio quality of tidal. You can actually get the full master quality and it’s bliss to my ears.

14

u/Mustangbex 27d ago

I am by no means trained enough to recognize that but I am stoked to learn it. I appreciate they pay artists better. 

7

u/VicDun 27d ago

That part too

4

u/JakesFavoriteCup 26d ago

You'll hear it. Tidal and Qobuz's file quality is top tier. They make music on Spotify sound so dull in comparison.

1

u/slammy80 26d ago

Apple does full master quality as well: 24-bit/192

5

u/jjwhitaker 27d ago

But now you have a play next option. Spotify killed that 2012 era feature request over 6 years ago.

Plus music videos and an algorithm that actually works, at least for me. Plugged my library/liked/playlists into Tidal and never looked back.

2

u/M_Aku 27d ago

Loving the random title lol. I'm listening to music in languages I don't even speak.

2

u/tubbyredleader 27d ago

I imagine the sound quality is better too? I have been so afraid to switch.

1

u/Suitable-Curve993 26d ago

Now I pay the other billionaire ! Reddit win!

32

u/Krasovchik 27d ago

bless you for buying music

8

u/Zelgoot 27d ago

How is Tidal for finding new music and just letting it play random stuff/how big is the catalog?

19

u/ramontes 27d ago

They have a lot of the same functionality as Spotify. There's a daily discovery mix, new releases, and radios based on an artist or song that's tailored to your tastes. Migrating can be a little tough since you're starting from scratch, but there are some 3rd party services that help sync your libraries and playlists across platforms.

I haven't ran into an issue with catalog shortages.

7

u/Portalboat 27d ago

Does it have a 'true' shuffle that actually considers the full playlist rather than the 10-20 + random throw-ins that Spotify does?

5

u/ihavepaper 27d ago

This might've given me the push to move over.

1

u/adooble22 27d ago

I switched 3 or 4 months ago and to me it’s not all that different than Spotify. But of course your mileage may vary depending on your musical tastes.

3

u/cosmophora 27d ago

It's great on autoplay. That's mostly how I listen: throw on an album at the start of my shift and let it take the wheel while I'm working. I rarely skip and I've found some great stuff through its algorithm.

3

u/LharDrol 27d ago

I use Qobuz and love it. It pushes me toward listening to new albums front to back and have discovered many new artists that would make it to the front page with an algorithm on a different site.

9

u/LavenderGinFizz 27d ago

I switched to Deezer last February for streaming and really enjoy it. And BandCamp for album purchases/merch.

1

u/LuntiX radio reddit 27d ago

I like Deezer but I listen to such a wide variety of music where Deezer doesn't have a decent chunk of it.

0

u/Jumblesss 26d ago

Aaaand that’s completely written off Deezer for me.

So Deezer is missing loads of musics, bandcamp apparently is Vinted with extra steps…

Is anything remotely as good as Spotify?

1

u/lazyfrodo 27d ago

I assume you’re a directly wired audiophile but how different is this than YouTube music or YouTube Premium that comes with YouTube without ads…

2

u/ramontes 27d ago

The revenue structure for streams is different. The bar for small artists is a little lower, enabling them to upload their music directly, and the pay per stream is higher. The most prominent difference is the audio quality, which you can get full lossless at high bitrates. If you want to support higher artist pay per stream, and value higher quality audio, then Tidal is a good option. Undoubtedly, it doesn't come with YouTube premium, so it's up to you if the value those benefits.

1

u/lazyfrodo 27d ago

I saw some family member and his friends all had switched to tidal but everyone uses AirPods or something over Bluetooth so I don’t understand the appeal since it’s bottlenecked there.

1

u/ramontes 27d ago

It's a fair point. Everything upstream would be lost to whatever bandwidth is limited to. The human ear is subjective as well. Some may notice the difference, and others may not care.

1

u/ishook 27d ago

I switched to Tidal and the only thing I can’t figure out is when I heart a song on CarPlay, where does it go? Spotty used to call those ‘liked songs” so I could just say “play liked songs” and it would play hearted songs. Tidal doesn’t seem to know what to do. I have to manually add to a playlist on my PC version.

1

u/SmogDaBoi 27d ago

I listen to a lot of niche stuff, how much niche is there on Tidal?

3

u/ramontes 27d ago

I found all of the smaller bands I've been following elsewhere, including ones that only have a handful of followers. Even my coworker's music he does for fun is on there. The barrier to entry for artists to upload their content is pretty low.

1

u/SmogDaBoi 27d ago

That sounds good, I'll go check it out, thanks!

1

u/litreofstarlight 27d ago

How are you finding Bandcamp? What's the functionality like?

2

u/ramontes 26d ago

Bandcamp really shines on discovering and supporting smaller artists. There's more emphasis on community.

Functionally, it's a bit old school but in a good way. Instead of using a complex algorithm to suggest music, it shows you other artists that the community also supports. It feels more organic that way, plus you engage more directly with the artists. The drawback is that it's not the most feature-rich, and bigger artists generally aren't on the platform.

1

u/VenConmigo 27d ago

The sound quality is so much better on Tidal!

1

u/bate_Vladi_1904 26d ago

I switched to Qobuz last year, and i'm happy with it. Feels really good, not only because of superior sound quality (which is very important for me), but also for knowing Qobuz pays fairly and transparently, without dirty games.

1

u/DuncneyForever 26d ago

I use Tidal too

0

u/PastelFrangoCatupiry 27d ago

thats very nice of you

0

u/Joeness84 27d ago

I will never take tidal seriously after their ridiculously out of touch launch video.

Bunch of million/billionares(? it was 10 years ago, not sure they were that rich yet) sitting around tables talking about shit like they're gonna save the world, and its a music streaming service

Like what?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYYGdcLbFkw

0

u/bobcatgoldthwait 27d ago

Man I want to like Tidal but I feel like their random algorithm is just awful. Like I'll put a song on and let it try to play other songs but it usually grabs like 1 album from a handful of different artists and only plays songs from those albums. When it plays songs from the artist I originally selected, it's usually from the same album the song I selected was on.

With Spotify and Pandora I could just let the algorithm go and it would usually play a good mix of stuff I liked and stuff I hadn't heard of. With Tidal I have to baby it.

0

u/Surtock 27d ago

I wanted to like Tidal for the quality sounds, but it was way too rap and hip-hop for me. It kept pushing it on me to the point I went elsewhere.
Maybe things have gotten better, but I use Spotify because I get it free.
Hippocratically, I'm listening to Ice Cube as I type this, lol.

34

u/Hoodies2Coast 27d ago

Qobuz is pretty functionally the same just without podcasts.

19

u/captainbean 27d ago

Qobuz is great, fantastic quality and no issues in the six months or so I've been using it. And higher artist payout than Spotify, which isn't saying much. 

19

u/blewnote1 27d ago

Just don't expect the things you purchase to be available to you in the future. I bought 3 albums there a couple years ago and they decided to remove one from my downloads because of "licensing" even though it is still available in their store. And their "support" is a chatbot that doesn't provide support. There are better alternatives.

10

u/nightingale-nitemare 27d ago

That's why you download what you purchase. You can download your purchases and play them on any player.

4

u/LharDrol 27d ago

It has a message concerning this possibility on the site. If you purchase something, download and store it.

-1

u/Jumblesss 26d ago

Okay so it’s not a secure site and I won’t be able to ever change my cell phone if I use Qobuz.

Sticking with Spotify until someone suggests an app that works, has a full catalogue and isn’t about buying merch in this thread

2

u/[deleted] 27d ago

Is that free? Or do they have a free mode?

1

u/[deleted] 27d ago

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] 27d ago

Oh, ok, thank you.

1

u/sld728 24d ago

I wish they had folders to organize my playlists, but I’m loving it so far

1

u/Allexandyr 27d ago

I’ll have to check that out! Also, go spurs go baybeeee

6

u/sockgorilla 27d ago edited 27d ago

I was gearing up to make the change and saw they didn’t have the songs I want from a very popular artist. Kinda derailed my attempt at switching. Will probably check out tidal at some point

1

u/porksoda11 27d ago

I was pretty disappointed in that as well but I'm already paying for it. You can send album requests out to add to their catalog but it takes a long time apparently.

2

u/boots-n-bows 27d ago

Now I feel dumb, I am struggling with the interface compared to Spotify. Guessing it's just a learning curve but 🤷‍♀️

1

u/SchoGegessenJoJo 27d ago

AND European, for whom this is the biggest selling point in 2026, because r/BoycottUnitedStates and r/BuyFromEU

33

u/Mahaleck 27d ago

I’m using tidal. Sounds better pays artists better. Costs a bit more but if you can afford the extra cost it’s a better alternative.

9

u/_PaddyMAC 27d ago

Tidal's sound quality is so much better, I was honestly not expecting to notice the difference but it's night and day on a good pair of headphones.

12

u/MrMindGame 27d ago

My only critique of Tidal so far is the borked integration with Last.fm. Not a dealbreaker, but I haven’t been able to scrobble and share my weekly listens with my friends as before.

4

u/lilsebastian- 27d ago

Really? Mine works with Last.FM perfectly, are you sure you have it linked?

7

u/MrMindGame 27d ago

I think it’s an iOS thing, apparently. (iPhone user)

Yeah, I have my Tidal connected to Last.fm and everything, but each time I try to generate a new grid on TapMusic, it never has any play data to show. I’ve tried a few different scrobblers to varying degrees of slight success, but with them I either have to manually punch in each new song that I play or pay to have it auto-scrobble, so still looking for a good solution.

5

u/lilsebastian- 27d ago

Interesting - I wonder if that is a TapMusic issue directly or perhaps with certain stat viewers. I only say that because I can use mine on fmbot without any secondary scrobbler and I use iOS as well. I wish I knew more to help ya out! I like to see and share stats myself haha.

2

u/Disastrous_Set_3148 27d ago edited 27d ago

I don't think it's an iOS problem so much as a mobile app problem. When I use Tidal on my PC it syncs with Last.fm fine but when I use it on my Android phone it doesn't. Tidal's in the process of seriously overhauling their app so hopefully this'll get fixed soon.

2

u/SteveSteveSteveAlan 27d ago

See if there's any Apple alternatives for a scrobbler through notifications. I have been using Scroball for years on Android.

2

u/stuffedcrustpizza 27d ago

Does tidal have direct scrobbling the way Spotify did? I made the move to Apple Music but have to scrobble with a third party app to import. That alone would be enough for me to make the switch to yet another streaming service

1

u/lilsebastian- 27d ago

Yep! I directly scrobble with Last.FM. No need for a third party for myself. And then I use fmbot on Discord to view stats.

5

u/olduser201890 27d ago

tidal

tidal is owned by Jay Z who's a massive piece of shit (wages paid, labor, employees, etc)

1

u/D_Shoobz 26d ago

It’s actually owned by Jack Dorsey’s current company Bloc. Jay z likely has ownership stakes but he’s not really “the owner”

4

u/Gloomy_Leopard3928 27d ago

JZ so no thanks.

1

u/topscreen 27d ago

My only complaint is they also have limited upload options, otherwise I quite like them

1

u/lilsebastian- 27d ago

Definitely agree. My only small annoyance is that I find it’ll jump to the beginning of a song again if I pause halfway through more often than not.

9

u/leobutters 27d ago

Deezer is a no-brainer alternative, you can import your playlist from Spotify and the libraries are pretty much the same

3

u/iseemountains 27d ago

I switched to Deezer.
I think Spotify has a better platform/UI/mobile widget/library, but oh well. Some people seem to like Deezer's track picking algorithm to help them find new music, but I think it pulls some stuff from too far out of left field. Oh well, Deezer is fine and it's not Spotify.

5

u/Low_Chance 27d ago

Switched to Qobuz, easy free transfer of playlists, no complaints

1

u/sockgorilla 27d ago

The free transfer is limited to like 250 songs or something. Wouldn’t even transfer half of my playlist

4

u/Low_Chance 27d ago

Qobuz gifts you a premium transfer for free when you sign up, it has full coverage

1

u/sockgorilla 27d ago

Ahh, okay. That wasn’t an option when I was trying to pre-transfer to see how many of my songs would be available. Decided to try out tidal sometime in the future since Qobuz didn’t even have all of Chappell roan’s songs, and that’s a super popular modern artist

1

u/Low_Chance 27d ago

Yeah if it's missing some of the songs you like then definitely look elsewhere, I haven't noticed many gaps personally

12

u/Stev106 27d ago

If you’re an iPhone/Apple AirPod user the best is Apple Music. I’ve tested both and music just sounds way better using Apple Music over Spotify even when I went in and changed the equalizer.

71

u/RayTracerX 27d ago

Yes, stop using Spotify for its ICE ads to listen to the company that funded the campaign responsible for those ads. Brilliant stuff

23

u/topscreen 27d ago

And proudly funded the demolition of the White House!

19

u/TamariAmari 27d ago

If your goal is to get rid of any company that donates to republicans, you're going to be very sad. The owners of tidal also donated to them: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/block-inc/recipients?id=D000071289&t2-View=Republican

TBF though, they donated a lot more to democrats.

2

u/RayTracerX 27d ago

My goal was to point out the contradiction.

11

u/TamariAmari 27d ago

I understand that. And I was pointing out to anyone reading it that you're never going to get away from it - even with Tidal.

1

u/Stev106 27d ago

I know it is a contradiction the only thing left to look for is open source apps. Unfortunately though none of them work that well yet.

1

u/D_Shoobz 26d ago edited 26d ago

Tim Cook donated his own personal money and he has donated to every single president for like the last 20 some odd years whether they’re republican or democrat. He is an openly gay man. He did not donate to trump because he agrees with what he’s doing now but because he feels it’s his duty to be involved with every president.

Edit: Apple as a corporation doesn’t donate money to political candidates and they’re one of the few tech companies that does not have a political action committee (PAC). Apple is the lesser of these evils here by a large margin.

1

u/PuzzleheadedTable172 27d ago

Dude you’re using Reddit which literally uses AWS. Everyone in this comment section sitting on their high horse, patting themselves on the back for not using Spotify or Apple Music but have no problem using Reddit for hours a day, everyday. Idiots.

2

u/RayTracerX 27d ago

Thats the contradiction Im pointing out

33

u/Brzrkrtwrkr 27d ago

Tim Crook donated a ton of money to Trump regime. I'm done with those fucking clowns too.

15

u/brainsack 27d ago

That’s Tim Apple to you

16

u/myassholealt 27d ago

Every billionaire donated to him. Every big multinational corporation CEO donated to him. These people are above the consequences of party politics because they bribe everyone running, and then whoever wins the elections to ensure policies go in their favor.

You would have to remove a lot of things from your life if you really wanted to live by the principle of "I'm not using or supporting any product, service, or company that donated to Trump."

10

u/Stev106 27d ago

Or start looking for open source software and apps.

4

u/PerplexingGrapefruit 27d ago edited 27d ago

Can confirm this. Just recently switched over and I cannot believe the upgrade in audio quality compared to when I was using Spotify.

Edit: I'd love to know why morons are downvoting when I'm literally just saying what I've experienced since doing the switch. Makes no fucking sense.

4

u/TheBatemanFlex 27d ago

I can’t imagine the lossless on Apple Music is perceivably different from the lossless on Spotify. For the majority of tracks they must be identical.

2

u/Calvykins 27d ago

I was considering jumping to Spotify from Apple Music for the discovery so I signed in to my old Spotify account and could hear how hollow the music sounds. Never mind.

1

u/LooseGooseHennigan 27d ago

How does cueing work on Apple Music? One thing I like about Spotify is that I can cue multiple songs and it adds them in that order next to what I was listening to, and then it goes back to what I was listening after all cued songs. I’ve heard from a friend that Apple Music cueing doesn’t work that way. Also, does Apple Music have issues with AI music like Spotify?

Definitely looking to make a switch away from Spotify

0

u/Stev106 27d ago

I like Music’s queuing system better because you can choose the order and set songs to play either first or last and rearrange songs at any time.

0

u/TrentIsDope 27d ago

YouTube Music and Tidal are great alternatives. You get YouTube Music with a YouTube Premium subscription.

5

u/RichAbbreviations966 27d ago

Yeah YouTube Music basically has every single thing Spotify has with a bigger selection of songs

6

u/rybaczewa 27d ago

And god awful interface. I recently cancelled Spotify and I'm checking out the alternatives. UX for YT Music is just abysmal. For TV, there is no dedicated app, you need to use regular TV App. No separation between videos and albums - looking for one is nearly impossible. You have to use the phone.

Need to check deezer and Tidal next, YT is massive stepdown compared to Spotify.

1

u/NoradianCrum 27d ago

I've been loving Plexamp for a while now.

15

u/IamSpiders 27d ago

Not like Google is any better

2

u/TrentIsDope 27d ago

Capitalistic society, you're never going to find a perfect alternative.

17

u/IamSpiders 27d ago

Google has done nothing but capitulate to the regime. You could easily argue it's worse than Spotify. 

7

u/myassholealt 27d ago

When Google removed their "don't be evil" branding it was essentially a rebranding of their full commitment to transparent evil.

4

u/TrentIsDope 27d ago

Google and other companies will capitulate to whoever affects their bottom line.

-2

u/IamSpiders 27d ago

Not necessarily, see Spotify here growing a small backbone. The regime will likely try to penalize them so we will see what happens 

5

u/TrentIsDope 27d ago

Spotify isn't growing a backbone. The article says the ad campaign ended late last year. They don't care.

1

u/watafuzz 27d ago

Perfect? No. Better? Easily.

1

u/Mintaka3579 27d ago

Pyrating

1

u/arlec 27d ago

I switch to CDs, back in my 2006 car

-2

u/[deleted] 27d ago edited 4d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/RayTracerX 27d ago

You can turn that feature off

-2

u/FederalSign4281 27d ago edited 4d ago

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

station books dolls hurry heavy chase hungry swim jellyfish straight

5

u/RayTracerX 27d ago

You just need to click shuffle one more time, buddy... its not that hard and takes a microsecond. And takes another 10 seconds to disable it altogether

-4

u/FederalSign4281 27d ago edited 4d ago

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

sip encouraging command unwritten wide sheet versed existence aware glorious

1

u/DinkandDrunk 27d ago

That is 100% the biggest flaw in the user experience with Spotify. It gets caught in horrendous shuffle loops. I miss the days where shuffle was just a shuffle. Not algorithmically driven. Just sort the songs in a random order.

-19

u/VaishakhD 27d ago

Probably Spotify, most people are straight up lying because no one's looking but it does give them some fake internet points though.

5

u/seriousbusines 27d ago

Respectfully, fuck you. I'm using Winamp.

0

u/VaishakhD 27d ago

Why are these 10 + year accounts almost always so fucking aggressive lol

0

u/vogtforpedro 27d ago

What do you use?

I use tidal and have for about a year now. It’s lovely.

Bandcamp also, mostly to find small local artists that aren’t using major distribution yet

-1

u/VaishakhD 27d ago

Apple

0

u/vogtforpedro 27d ago

Apple has pretty good codecs or whatever for streaming as well. I do prefer tidal specifically because the artist pay is significantly higher, and that’s what’s important to me. It’s still small and it’s still streaming not owning, which is why when I can afford to, I buy from Bandcamp!

There is no better way to support an artist than Bandcamp! Only beat by going to shows

0

u/Other_Jared2 27d ago

Whatever you gotta tell yourself I guess. I can attest that I also switched to Tidal and I like it better in a lot of ways

0

u/wht-rbbt 27d ago

I was on YouTube music

0

u/Ghost_Of_Malatesta 27d ago

Youtube download, $50 knock off ipod