You too can be the friend without Spotify!

Streaming services suck. It's 2025 (barely), I think we can all safely agree on this. The myth that Netflix sold us in 2007 has been crashing for years, and I think it's fair to say it's been on fire the entire way down. These companies aren't profitable, artists on platforms like Spotify don't make substantial money off of their own art, and the consumer is never getting their money's worth in the current economic state of the world.

But hey, unlimited skips and no ads, right?

I'm no stranger to subscription-based music services, I spent a lot of time on Amazon Music as a young teen, passed through a couple apps before landing on Spotify for the last couple of years. The social aspect of services like these, being able to have a profile to show off what you're listening to, sharing curated playlists, it's definitely a bonus. I love being able to share music with my friends!

But MP3 files are so small, you don't even need Nitro to send them on Discord.

These days it's easy to see how convenience has dominated the cultural perception of services like Spotify, and have really pushed out the idea of owning your own media. Video games have held out pretty well, but even they are facing cloud gaming and subscriptions like every other media. It's become so accepted that you will not own anything (especially not physically, god forbid!) and you will instead pay $10-20 minimum every month for the rest of your life for permission to watch "Friends" for the 2635th time. Assuming the service you subscribed to can keep the rights to it, in which case you'll have to subscribe to another app. And then they might loose access. Maybe they'll have it as a timed exclusive on another site. Maybe it's only available with the Premium Tier. You did remember to cancel that original subscription, right? Oh good, I was worried we wouldn't be squeezing more pennies out of you this month! Hope your card doesn't decline~

I don't have to tell you it looks pretty bleak. I mean, how do we break out of a cycle that we started, that is perpetuated by corporations and CEOs that are richer than the human mind can fathom, and protected by systems that block us from making meaningful change in favor of the further enrichment of the oligarchy?

There's not an easy answer to that, dear reader, but one step is to say No. Refuse to submit. Rage against it in any way you can. To circle back to the title of this post, you can be the friend without Spotify. Be the person that people ask about torrenting, and archiving, and offline media. Get a $40 external SSD and start collecting MP3s, MP4s, epubs, .iso dumps, anything and everything. That's what I mean when I say that. Be the friend without Spotify.

It's as simple as deciding to start really. I was put off of the process due to the sheer volume of media I wanted to keep. It can be overwhelming on it's own. But it's more managable if you break it down into categories. Maybe today you feel like rewatching your favorite show. Go ahead and see how you can download it. Store it for later. Today you wanna listen to your favorite band? Find out how you can download their albums. Store them for later. In places where you can support the creators (Bandcamp, Ko-fi donations, etc.) within your financial constrants, do so. But don't feel bad when you archive their content for later. It's what artists want to happen, they want their content to be available, the least we can do is oblige them and make sure corporations can't just make their hard work disappear. Again, support them if you can, but don't feel bad if you can't.

As far as how to listen to all this music and watch all these videos you're downloading, VLC Media Player has you covered. You do have VLC, right? How do you use your computer without VLC? Anyways, VLC can handle just about any media you throw into it, and if it can't, yes it can you just need the right plugin. They also have a mobile app, so you can put your music and shows and movies on your phone of choice and play them on-the-go.

Speaking of on-the-go, if you're anything like me, you may want a dedicated media device, because the latest iOS update is already giving you a "storage full" warning and you hate having to switch headphones just to listen to your phone privately. In that case, it depends on what you want this media device to be or do. Obviously your laptop with VLC can play anything you want, but if you only plan to take your music with you, a simple MP3 player is what you need. You can go for a classic iPod as old as Gen 1 or 2, an iPod Nano (my MP3 player of choice for a few years), or get a little weirder with it and get a PlayStation Portable. The PSP is actually a great all-in-one media device, doing music of plenty of formats, video (once it's been converted to the right resolution/format), and also play PSP games. It has a prolific homebrew scene, and I like using the Hold+ plugin to extend the battery life when listening to music.

More recently, I dusted off the old iPhone 3GS I've had since I was a kid and loaded it up with music. As I write this, I'm testing the battery life, which has a current record of 12.5%/hour which is better than I thought it would output! I'll likely be using it as my out-of-the-house MP3 player. My PSP Go will be my at-home mini-media device since it doesn't have great battery life either, but it's battery can actually handle the screen being on, unlike the 3GS which will die in minutes with the screen on. I'll be testing it to be sure it's worse than the 3GS, just for travel, though I'll definitely have a portable battery just in case. They display video in nearly identical resolutions, so as far as small-screen viewing it's largely the same, though the PSP has much better compatiblity since you have to run it through a conversion process anyway, whereas the iTunes app will just go "Oops! Sorry, can't play that on this device :3" which... oh yeah, the PSP will connect straight to your computer like a drive and let you add files, you have to install and use the iTunes library manager to even put music on the iPhone or iPod in the first place. Kinda sucks, but I hear that older iPods have some cool jailbreak menus that can be used. Worth looking into if that's your MP3 player of choice. The PSP can also just straight up play more media files for audio than an iPod or iPhone does stock, iTunes will try to convert your files if you don't use a normal MP3. So, y'know, pick your poison.

If you're like me, you sometimes don't notice how much something as simple as Spotify can eat away at your wallet. I started subscribing with their student discount through my university email, so I paid like half the usual and got Hulu included free (unneccesary but cool). At some point, with no notice or notification, they switch me off of that and to the regular plan, which I started paying full price for without noticing until I was checking my account details to cancel it a month or so ago. That shit slid by right under my nose for a good while and took a good bite out of my already-tight wallet each month until I was looking for totally unrelated reasons. That's not to mention services like Netflix constantly upping costs, the rising cost of living in general, and streaming isn't sustainable for the consumer, let alone the companies that push these subscriptions. There has never been a better time to jump ship before the whole thing tanks and you loose access to years of music cataloguing. Take this time to note your favorites, the ones you'd consider a part of your music library. Make a list if you have to, or just reference your in-app library. Take a minute to search Internet Archive when you think about that album you love. Check Bandcamp when you think about that artist you keep up with. Hell, check Discogs if there's really nothing for it online, dump it and archive it yourself! It's a very satisfying process :3

Shifting to offline cataloguing/archiving/etc. can seem like a daunting task, but when you start to go about it just a piece at a time, it's a fairly simple and straightforward process that won't take as long as you think. I got all of my music in two casual afternoon Internet browsing sessions, and if I remember an album or song I want, it's a fun "Oh I forgot about that one!" moment before I do a quick search and find what I'm looking for. It's been so much better for me since canceling my subscription and moving offline, the user-end experience is so nice, and the only suffering because of this is the corporation that doesn't pay their artists and runs ads for fascist police forces. This is a real win-win situation.

I didn't even mention how easy it is to just look something up on YouTube, and use one of the hundreds of YouTube video downloaders to get an MP3 of it. The Internet is truly yours to take if you choose to grab hold. Media and art is yours, you don't have to ask permission to access it. You can be the friend without Spotify. It's the least you can do for yourself and your friends. Become the friend without Spotify, I promise it is leagues better.

~ Alex Amelia Pine