Based on the other replies it seems indeed like niche genres and non English music seems to be a weak spot, which really is unfortunate. Only 60% success rate in your case is indeed a deal breaker.

That is sad to hear and based on the other replies it seems not too uncommon that something niche is missing.

Imo it’s really fascinating how music streaming is different in that regard compared to video streaming. Where more people are just happy with whatever e.g. Netflix offers them and don’t seem to mind too much, if one particular thing isn’t on their service.

But I guess the fact that in regards to music everyone has a slightly different taste and each one really wants that particular, different niche artist is what so far has prevented a similar fragmentation of services happening as we see with video.

Have you found the smaller selection to be an issue in practice? Because most of what’s on Spotify never gets played, so the raw numbers without context don’t really give an answer to how good the selection is.

Since Anna’s archive recently downloaded most of Spotify we got some context to the statistics. See for example here. Only a fraction of those 260 million get listened to. And the number alone doesn’t tell how many of the actually relevant tracks are on a streaming service.

I think for people wanting to switch off Spotify, but stay with something European, Qobuz could be worth a look as they are from France and have similar focus on better audio quality similar to tidal.

This definitely seems like a good idea. It’s a big issue that most promising European companies go to the US for their listings in search for access to capital.

Seems to me that this would already have been the obvious move after Brexit.

However I feel like this is doomed to fail for the same reason as many other issues. Clashing interests of different member states within the EU. I assume this would still need to have a primary location somewhere, so Frankfurt or Paris would be the most likely location to build this up. Merz bringing this up presumably would like it to be Frankfurt, but I very much doubt that Macron would feel similarly.

John Oliver (or alternatively other talkshow hosts like John Steward, Stephen Colbert, or Conan) could be another interesting choice.

I’d assume he is probably more intelligent than me and has already spent a lot of time presenting problems and thinking about solutions. He’d also have the right energy to get things done.

That said, I think without changes to the capabilities of the office, I actually don’t think they’d get that much done. Despite what it sometimes may look like, Trump can only do most of the things because others support it. This isn’t a one man show.

My main point was that you pay for it regardless. All the things you list i can also do with a cable i simply purchase seperately. But the difference here is that i can either choose not to buy one, if i don’t need it. Or purchase a specific one e.g. a very long one, if i prefer that over the standard short one.

I doubt most manufacturers would lower the price when stopping to include them, but they might delay raising it for a while. In any case i think the economic mechanism (at least in an idealistic setting) is logical.

I don’t think it would logistically make sense to have versions with and without accessories included, since that instantly doubles the version count. But most if not all places that sell phones also sell cables/chargers. So in that way the choice already exists.

That said i think this line of thinking mostly works because we have standardized on USB-C for quite a while now, so the assumption that most people already have access to a cable is valid. This would be different if they’d require specific cables like e.g. my garmin watch does, which you wouldn’t normally have and that you’d likely purchase from the same manufacturer. In that case seperating them might have the opposite effect in making the price to consumers less transparent.

Also i could get behind the idea that not including something like a cable would require a prominent warning lable that “a cable or wireless charger (if applicable)” is required for longterm use.

But wouldn’t it be equally valid to frame it the other way around that so far we have paid for them to be included, whether we like it or not?

I mean the price to manufacture them doesn’t change and companies werent charities before either.

Feels like in a functioning market this should just sort itself out. At least if it is transparent whether the phone includes accessories or not. People could factor this into their pricing decision.

The more interesting argument imo is the one another comment in this thread made, that this way miss match between phone and charger/cable capabilities might happen. Which seems like a double edged sword. One the one hand manufacturers can advertise great charging speeds and people might not realize that only expensive chargers might be able to achieve those. On the other hand as the comment points out customers might not get the expected performance leading to frustration and negative associations with the particular brand.

To be honest: I haven’t done a complete switch. I still lurk on reddit from time to time.

What I have done however is switched to only actively engage with Lemmy, which imo is the more important part. I sadly don’t have much original content to offer, but I try to engage in some comments (like just now)

I admittedly don’t have enough comparison, since my last phones were all pretty much stock android (2x pixel and before that a nokia/hmd with android one. I do have a Samsung tablet, but only a lower one without Samsung dex, which i assume would be the most interesting vendor feature? What special features am i missing out on?

What i do however like is that they don’t come with google apps and another set of vendor specific ones by default. Some of them might be better than the default, but when i am unsatisfied by that i rather just choose a replacement myself and download it e.g. from fdroid store.

Also I’m not sure Pixel actually counts as a premium phone.

As far as msrp price goes i’d say they are in the premium segment price wise, but at least here in Germany they pretty much immediately are available at great discounts at least in combination with mobile plans.

You are right that hardware wise they aren’t necessarily at the top, especially when compared to some of the chinese brands. But in return you get clean software and very long support. And even though the camera might not have the greatest specs the immediate results (which is what matters to most consumers) are consistenly ranked among the best.

Generally I think there are two questions: why does Spotify want messages and why would a user want them. The first one seems easy enough to answer: anything that binds a customer more closely to their product and creates switching costs in an otherwise relatively interchangeable product is good from a business perspective.

I could imagine some other use cases as well: Maybe it could be used to allow artists to engage their fans, inserting the platform deeper inbetween those two. I don’t really know how merch and ticket sales are currently handled exactly, but a messaging system might also be useful to fully keep users within the app while using those features.

Yeah, even when considering them briefly that was an absolute deal breaker to me. 4/6 is still far less than the 7 years you get from Google/Samsung (at least their higher end models) or however long iPhones get updates, but similar to some competitors already mentioned in this thread from Xiaomi or vivo.

And I guess many will upgrade within 6 years anyways, whereas with 2 years it was basically guaranteed that the devices will spend a good part (maybe even a majority) of their lifetime without any software and security updates.

Another aspect imo is software update policy. I guess now with new EU legislation it should improve, but in the past you got like 2 years OS, 3 security updates? Even on their flagship models.

That’s just terrible, even more so when you weren’t buying them at release.

I mean in the server space Linux has already won and is doing just fine. Imo it is actually the reverse and sad that it needs this level of turmoil to get Europe to even think about software and digital infrastructure as fundamental. And even with all that’s going on they are just dipping their toes into it rather than properly comitting to a radical shift. Hell, even with all that’s going on some parts of the police here in Germany are still getting into bed with companies like Palantir.

Agreed. I hope this gains even more traction. Building a digital economy around support and service of free open source software with the requirement of personnel being local seems like the best way for Europe to finally become competitive.