Several movie and TV sites have come and go where you can just visit and watch without even creating an account. Quality might not be as good as a paid service and they are no doubt in the grey-to-red zone legally. I don’t see the same service for music.
Why do you think is there such a difference in trends?
YouTube with ad blockers took that over.
There is!
Ceck out this (android): ViMusic
I’m crying (deservedly) in iOS
Its just a frontend for YouTube music essentially. Maybe worth taking a look if someone makes something similar now with sideloading being an option
Edit: 2 minutes of googling lead me to this https://github.com/rphrishi4/RiMusic4ios?tab=readme-ov-file
Most if not all music is on YouTube for free already. Maybe the equivalent is the sites that let you download music from YouTube and these come and go like the movie streaming sites.
What are you talking about? YouTube? The Pirate Bay? The radio? I’m honestly don’t understand why these sites don’t count.
I love Pirate Bay and torrents, but there’s barely any music there. The rare time I find something there, it has 0 seeds.
Soulseek, on the orher hand…
The radio has been playing free music since 1906.
Doesn’t Pandora & Spotify have free tiers with ads?
Had to drop my Spotify subscription. Figured I grew up on radio and broadcast TV, few ads won’t bother. Yeah, not like they do.
Maybe I’m paranoid, but I’d swear the ads were reasonable for a bit before they went nuts with them. Feels like I’m being bullied in renewing.
Feels like I’m being bullied in renewing.
Oh, make no mistake about it, you absolutely are. But OP asked about free options, and Spotify is one. A bad one, but still one.
You look at the screen while watching video, making ads profitable (they obstruct the view making you click something to close it, hijacking the click and generating visits).
If you do it for music people walk away and nobody clicks on the ads.
Spotify will force you to listen to an ad by pausing it if you mute the volume, then resuming it when you unmute.
I quit Spotify long ago so I don’t know if they still do it today, but they do have a way to force ads.