Spotify's Pricing Shift: A Developer's Journey to Self-Hosting

The personal account by Lay Andreas outlines a decisive shift from using Spotify to establishing a self-hosted music streaming environment. This transition was primarily triggered by two factors: a significant price increase for the Spotify Premium Family plan and the discontinuation of the Car Thing device. Andreas began by calculating the total cost of ownership for streaming services over several years, comparing it to the one-time cost of purchasing digital music files.

The core of the article details the technical stack chosen for the new setup. The author selected Navidrome as the media server to replicate Spotify's streaming capabilities. For acquiring new music, Lidarr was implemented to automate downloads and organization. The process was not without its challenges, specifically regarding the acquisition of accurate metadata and high-resolution album artwork, which Spotify handles automatically. Despite these hurdles, the author successfully built a robust system that offers full control, privacy, and a curated listening experience free from external influence.

The catalyst for Lay Andreas was a notification of a price hike for the Spotify Premium Family plan. The subscription cost was set to rise from $15 to $20 per month. This financial change prompted a reevaluation of the value proposition offered by the service. The author also cited the removal of the Car Thing hardware as a contributing factor to the dissatisfaction with the platform's direction.

Andreas performed a cost analysis to contextualize the recurring expense. The calculation determined that over a five-year period, the family plan would cost $1,200. This figure was compared directly to the cost of purchasing a lifetime subscription to a service like Apple Music or, more compellingly, buying music files outright. The author noted that for the same amount of money, one could own a significant library of music permanently rather than renting access.

• Family plan price increase from $15 to $20/month.
• Discontinuation of the Car Thing device.
• Long-term cost analysis favoring ownership over rental.

To replace the Spotify ecosystem, Lay Andreas architected a self-hosted solution centered on a media server. The chosen software was Navidrome, an open-source music streaming server designed to be lightweight and compatible with various Subsonic API clients. This allows for streaming music to any device, effectively mimicking the core functionality of Spotify. The server was deployed using Docker for ease of management and isolation.

For the automation of music acquisition, the author implemented Lidarr. Lidarr is a music collection manager that monitors RSS feeds for new releases from artists on a watchlist and automatically downloads them. This tool ensures the library stays up-to-date without manual intervention. The combination of Navidrome for playback and Lidarr for management creates a closed-loop system for music consumption. The author emphasized the importance of a stable internet connection and sufficient storage space, as the user is now responsible for hosting their entire media library and the associated metadata.

One of the most significant hurdles Lay Andreas encountered was the quality of music metadata. Spotify provides a polished, centralized database of artist information, album art, and track listings. In the self-hosted world, this data must be sourced from community-maintained databases like MusicBrainz. The author found that matching local files to the correct metadata was often tedious and prone to errors.

Acquiring high-quality album art proved equally challenging. While Spotify streams high-resolution images seamlessly, finding consistent and accurate artwork for a self-hosted library required significant effort. The author spent considerable time manually curating and correcting metadata to achieve a professional look and feel. This process highlighted the immense value of the infrastructure maintained by large streaming platforms, which is often taken for granted by users. However, the upside is that the resulting library is perfectly tailored to the user's specific preferences.

• Reliance on community databases like MusicBrainz.
• Manual matching of files to metadata.
• Time-consuming curation of album artwork.

Despite the technical labor involved, Lay Andreas concludes that the benefits of self-hosting outweigh the costs. The primary advantage is total ownership. The music library is a permanent asset that cannot be revoked or altered by a third-party company. The author is immune to future price hikes or the removal of features, as the entire system is under their control. This provides a sense of stability and permanence that subscription services cannot offer.

Furthermore, the listening experience is completely free from algorithmic influence. There are no sponsored podcasts interrupting the flow, no 'daylist' recommendations, and no data-driven playlists designed to keep the user engaged for marketing purposes. The system plays exactly what the user wants to hear, in the order they specify. The author views this project not just as a technical exercise, but as a reclaiming of personal data and cultural consumption from corporate platforms. It represents a move towards digital sovereignty.