best decision of 2025 so far, I’m already hearing way more interesting and experimental music from lesser-known/independent artists

haven’t paid for a Spotify subscription for about two years, but I still used the free version (with an app that mutes the ads) but it’s so fucking awful - every time I open that garbage app it tries to queue up some mainstream track they’re promoting and I can’t even access my play queue with the free version - nor can I listen to albums or playlists in order, making it mostly useless

I started building up my local .flac library (thanks to soulseek and bandcamp fridays) but that’s just on my PC and I still missed being able to easily stream full albums on my phone. then I remembered Soundcloud has a Spotify-like subscription, which everyone scoffed at when it was first announced but I’m using the free trial and it’s not too bad, not any worse than Spotify anyway. plus I get exposed to relatively unknown artists who can’t necessarily afford to get their music distributed on other platforms

sorry if this sounds like an ad - I’m sure SC is run by ghouls and I doubt they pay artists any better than Spotify or Apple does but it’s nice having an alternative that isn’t giving money to fucking Joe Rogan. I’m just glad to get that stupid green app off my phone