Update (9/11/23): A TikTok spokesperson told Media Matters that “WGA has been inadvertently blocked as part of the platforms’ protections against QAnon conspiracy theories.” Searches for “WGA” and related terms now appear to function normally.

You can have it fast, good, or cheap: pick two, and unless you’re bankrolling the developer you’ve already chosen cheap.

They’re paying Joe Rogan $200M to be the exclusive home of his conspiracy disinformation bullshit, and they’re more concerned about forest_stream_with_gentle_rain_3.mp3?

I’ve been very happy with Tidal. I prefer the UX to the Spotify app but it is lacking some functionality like Spotify Connect. It’s also nice that they pay artists more, and that none of my subscription fees are feeding into a $200 million contract for Joe Rogan.

If you use Google Home/Assistant, Tidal doesn’t integrate well. It does integrate with Alexa.

As far as audio quality, I’m reasonably certain that I’d be unable to discern between the top tiers of any of the current services in a blind A/B test.

Makes sense. People are thirsty for a something along the lines of “Twitter, but fewer nazis”, so tons of people checked it out, but it still lacks feature parity with Twitter since it was a rushed-to-market MVP.

I think once it adds on a handful of new features, it’s only a matter of time before audiences gravitate to Threads over a platform whose owner is bragging about funnelling money to human traffickers.