Music Piracy Is Back, Baby
Music Piracy Is Back, Baby
Websites for illegally downloaded music are seeing a sharp rise, and YouTube plays a massive role in enabling modern-day piracy.
"Muso, a research firm that studies piracy, concluded that the high prices of streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music are pushing people back towards illegal downloads. Spotify raised its prices by one dollar last year to $10.99 a month, the same price as Apple Music. Instead of coughing up $132 a year, more consumers are using websites that rip audio straight out of YouTube videos, and convert them into downloadable MP3 or .wav files.
Roughly 40% of the music piracy Muso tracked was from these “YouTube-to-MP3” sites. The original YouTube-to-MP3 site died from a record label lawsuit, but other copycats do the same thing. A simple Google search yields dozens of blue links to these sites, and they’re, by far, the largest form of audio piracy on the internet."
The problem isn't price. People just don't want to pay for a bad experience. What Apple Music and Spotify have in common is that their software is bloated with useless shit and endlessly annoying user-hostile design. Plus Steve Jobs himself said it back in 2007: "people want to own their music." Having it, organizing it, curating it is half the fun. Not fun is pressing play one day and finding a big chunk of your carefully constructed playlist is "no longer in your library." Screw that.
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Anghami is $2.99 per month or $24.99 per year. It is the only subscription service I use and I’m happy with it. $10.99 per month is excessive.
Do they actually have the same selection as Spotify and Apple music? I checked their website, and it appears to be catered to Arabic listeners, but I saw one of the pictures at least has Taylor Swift on there. I listen to a lot of niche stuff, though, and I don't feel like downloading the app just to see if it's there. That is a good price if they have all of the same artists, though.
Their international selection is small, if you primarily listen to English songs and podcasts it will not be sufficient. I think they still offer a free trial.
Thanks for the response and info, I really appreciate it! I will definitely let some of my family know about Anghami, because some of them actually listen to Arabic music, unlike myself.