Streaming Services Comparison

I've been using Spotify for more than 6 years but often try other services to see if I'd switch.
I always come back to Spotify, but this year I'm planning on never going back.
I'll be sharing my opinions on every service that I've tried, with some comments on areas that I don't often see mentioned in reviews.

## Info ##
DAC/AMP: Focusrite 2i4 2nd Gen || Apple USB-C audio adapter || iPhone SE 2020 || My car
Speaker setup: C-Notes w/SMSL SA-36A (TDA7492PE)
Headphones: Audio Technica M50x, Grado SR60e, Sennheiser HD58x, Koss Porta Pro, Earpods

## Spotify ##
I have been using Spotify for a long while and I've since grown accostumed to their set of features.
Spotify Connect is one that I particularly find myself using more than I thought. I also like that their search is "as-you-type".
I never enjoyed their podcast content/section and always used a separate (PocketCasts) app for that, so that's as much as I can comment on that.
As for their selection of music, most of the time I was able to find the music that I was looking for but keep in mind the time they push 'Remastered' versions,
which could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your preferences.

# Payments #
Average payout per stream: 0.00318 [0]
They are one of the least paying companies to artists and their CEO has made some comments regarding content that don't sit well with me.
This was the main reason of me wanting to switch services.

# Playlists #
Something I did a lot was finding playlists with any title that I could think of, and there'd ususally be at least one with some decent selection of music.
I could also share songs with friends and it'd be fairly easy because most of them are using Spotify, too.

# Desktop Experience - Windows #
Their desktop client is 'good'; it uses about 400mb of RAM and is usually slow to start-up and, sometimes, while looking for something it can also lag.

# Mobile Experience - Android/iOS #
I can't notice any major difference between platforms. The app worked mostly fine but there were times where it got stuck loading and I had to force-close it and try again.

# Audio #
I always used the 'High Quality' setting. It's fine. They are using 320kbps .OGG, they offer normalization.

# Misc #
Sometimes they release some features that look interesting but you never end up using.
Last thing I can remember is a feature that allowed you to share a "room" with a friend and listen to music at the same time.
In my experience, you never end up using this type of features but I wanted to mention it.


## Apple Music ##
I decided to try this one since I've recently switched to iPhone and wanted to see what the "integrated ecosystem" was all about.
They started out with a really bad platform but it has since evolved into something usable.
Honestly, this one is pretty uneventful. They had lyrics but Spotify has added them, Deezer has them and probably others will add them, too.
Any feature resembling Spotify Connect is not present from what I could find.
They have a separate app for Podcasts which is fairly good, but I didn't really use much (I prefered PocketCasts).
I have to mention that their new Apple One plans seem like a good deal if you are using all of their services, which Music is one of them.

# Payments #
Average payout per stream - 0.00563 [0]
They pay artists more than Spotify. I can't really comment much more.
There were some problems a few years back with them not paying royalties during trials but that seems to be solved.

# Playlists #
I didn't use it a lot but of course I couldn't find as many playlists like I did with Spotify. It was 'OK', though.
They have 'Radio Stations' and tailored playlists.

# Desktop Experience - Windows #
It's terrible (IMO). iTunes is still the bloated mess it has (seemingly) always been.
RAM usage seemed lower at first glance but while streaming it's using more than 1GB of my scarce memory. It's also clunky and slow.

# Mobile Experience - iOS #
I did use it on Android for a bit but I can't remember a lot of it. Their mobile app in iOS is good. They don't do search as-you-type.
Lyrics are easily accesible. Something weird for me is that you change the settings on the Settings app. I don't enjoy having to close the app to change settings.

# Audio #
Their AAC at 256kbps is supposedly equivalent to Spotify's offering. I can't really say I've noticed any difference.
Quality is good and you use a bit less data. They offer audio normalization, too.

# Misc #
There is no web player.


## Deezer ##
This is the one that I've been enjoying the most. I really like their 'Flow' feature which plays continous music based on your liked songs.
I don't like having a vast amount of playlists to select from whenever I feel like listening to new music.
Whenever you are playing music and start playing on a different device, it notifies you and lets you select where you want to listen.
It's sort of like Spotify Connect but not quite.

# Payments #
Average payout per stream - 0.00436 [0]
Less than AM but more than Spotify. Other sources mention that they pay less than Spotify but the source I linked seemed more thorough in their analysis.
They also have this thing called UCPS [1] which seems to be focused on paying artists more
but I don't really understand it and I don't know if it's a marketing stunt, a good deed or both so I won't comment anything else.

# Playlists #
I had a hard time searching for playlists but you can certainly find them. I could even find some replicas of famous Spotify playlists.
Altough, their 'Flow' feature was something that I used very often, more than just regular playlists.

# Desktop Experience - Windows #
Less RAM than Spotify! It usually hovers around 300mb and their app opens fast, navigates smoothly and seems to have no issues.

# Mobile Experience - iOS #
Same as their desktop app, their mobile app seems to be quality and I never had any problems with it.

# Audio #
MP3 at 320kbps. They also offer a HiFi version that streams FLAC which could be good.
I do remember that I read somewhere that some songs where just MP3s encoded as FLACs but can't recall anything else (it might've been Tidal even...).

# Misc #
They have some experimental features but nothing worth writing home about. They offer their streaming service, good quality and a lightweight set of features.


## Youtube Music ##
This is a weird one. I enjoy the bundled Youtube Premium subscription and I guess it's nice being able to search Youtube whenever a song is not in their repertoire.
But it feels so wierd... Whenever you search for something it often offers a version contained in one of those 'Hits from the 80s' albums.
I searched for RAtM and couldn't find the song I wanted so I tried their 'video' section hoping that I could find it there but, alas, it wasn't available.
NPR's Tiny Desk, which I enjoy, is mainly hosted on YouTube so having it available was great but I couldn't, for the life of me,
find any information whether the audio quality changed if you were using YouTube Music for playback.
So I'm paying to listen music in YouTube but can't be certain if it's higher than their compressed, lossy 128kbps AAC.
I really wanted to like it but I'm considering paying just to have YouTube Premium and use something else for music streaming.

# Payments #
Average payout per stream - 0.00164 - 0.00802

# Desktop Experience - Windows #
Officialy non-existant. There is a third-party OSS deskop app which works perfectly fine. RAM usage is around 400mb.
It has some bugs here and there but it's fine.

# Mobile Experience - iOS #
Meh. Sometimes it feels hard to navigate, search is annoying because you have to type more to get what you want. I mean it works fine but I don't know...

# Audio #
This was another issue. Their highest quality for music (and video??????) is 256kbps AAC, lower than GPM's 320kbps AAC. So one would assume that it sounds at least as good as Apple Music, but it doesn't.
I'm assuming they add some sort of compression to their files but it sounds different than other streaming services. It could sometimes sound 'better' but it's still the odd one out, which would mean that they do some extra processing.
A few years ago, White Sea Studio mentioned that YTM had the worst quality [4]. I can't say if it sounds bad still but just having that extra processing there bugs me.


## Tidal ##
I'll only write my overview since it's been a while since I tried it. It's a good service and one of the highest paying platforms (to artists) at an average of 0.00989 [0].
I can't really remember the reason of me switching from this one but they had video and events, if you are into that.
Regarding their FLAC/MQA offerings, I can honestly tell you that the only song where I was able to notice something different was in Landslide by Fleetwood Mac and it was a minuscule detail.
I did try Strobe by deadmau5 with my girlfriend's setup (Denon AVR-S510BT, Fluance Signature (3) + Polk OWM3 (2) + BIC Acoustech PL-200 (.1)) and it sounded 'better' but it wasn't a very scientific test.
I deemed that paying for high quality was not worth it. Also there's some controversy with MQA [2][3]

## Amazon Music ##
I immediately uninstalled it because the mobile app was atrocious to me. This was also a few years ago.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I also wanted to mention that I was able to move my music with SongShit [5]
Spotify -> Apple Music

and Mooval [6]
Spotify -> Deezer

I wasn't able to transfer to YouTube Music but I still haven't tried the service in the OP.

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I'll be happy to answer any further questions and comments regarding anything I forgot to mention.

[0] https://soundcharts.com/blog/music-streaming-rates-payouts
[1] https://www.deezer.com/ucps
[2] https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/reviews/mqa-a-review-of-controversies-concerns-and-cautions-r701/
[3] https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/mqa-a-review-of-controversies-concerns-and-cautions.2407/
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FURPQI3VW58
[5] https://songshift.com/
[6] https://www.mooval.de